ON THE 
ENTOMOLOGY OF THE HIMALAYAS AND OF INDIA. 
By the Rev. F. W. Horr, F.R.S., F.L.S., &c., President of the Entomological Society of London.* 
It may by some be considered a proof of presumption, that any individual should undertake to 
describe the entomo-geographical character of a country which he has never visited; and bold, I am 
willing to allow, is the attempt to embrace, in my views, not only the distribution of Insects in the 
Himalayas, but those &lso of the whole Continent of India and its adjacent islands. Possessing, how- 
ever, one of the richest Cabinets of Oriental Entomology to be found in this or any other country, 
the major part of the species collected at Calcutta, Madras, Poona, and Singapore, and in the islands 
of Java and Ceylon; and through the kindness of my friends, the late lamented General Hardwicke, 
Colonels Sykes and Whitehill, Captains Law, Smee, and Smith, having access to their rich and 
extensive collections from Nepal, Bombay, and the Deccan; I may be enabled, perhaps, from such 
a mass of materials, to offer some new facts respecting the geographical distribution of Insects, a subject 
apparently little studied, and certainly not sufficiently appreciated. It is, indeed, with diffidence that 
I undertake a task beset on all sides with difficulties; and before I enter on it, I claim the indulgence 
of my readers, and solicit them to regard the present attempt merely as an outline sketch, which can 
afterwards be filled up with greater accuracy, as our acquaintance with the nature of the soil, and the 
forms of animal and vegetable life belonging to the East, become better known. The ‘entomological 
character of a country is particularly influenced by three things ; first, by its temperature; secondly, 
by its vegetation; and, lastly, by its soil; and, perhaps, a few remarks on these subjects (relating 
chiefly to the Eastern world) may not here be deemed out of place, before entering more fully into the 
entomology of the Himalayas and of India. 
INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE AND OF MOISTURE. 
In those regions of the world where we find a multiplicity of genera of animals, united with a prolific- 
ness of species, we may naturally imagine that circumstances are admirably suited to their existence ; 
and, on the contrary, where we find a small number of genera, and in many instances a diminutive 
form, and a paucity of individuals, we arrive at an opposite conclusion. Now, if we search for the 
cause of these discrepancies, we shall find it to depend in a great measure on the influence of temperature. 
Let us examine, then, in what portion of the globe a super-fecundity of organized life exists. Certainly 
not at the poles, or even in the temperate zones; to the tropical and equatorial regions we must next 
proceed, and it is there, in those warmer districts of the earth that we find the energies of life more 
early developed, and vigour and productiveness seem the characteristics of the clime. These remarks 
apply 
* The Author has to apologize to the Rev. Mr. Hope and to his readers for the long delay which has occurred ig the publishing 
of this valuable Paper, written for him in 1834, and which has been in type for a considerable time. The Insects of the Author's 
coliserion: whiteis 248. Hope has described, were collected in the neighbourhood of Saharunpore, in the valleys of the Himalayas, and 
on the mountains in the neighbourhood of Mussooree, at 6,500 feet of an elevation in 30° of N. latitude. The reader will observe — 
that many of the desiderata required by Mr H, on temperature and vegetation, are detailed throughout this work, and he cannot 
fail to be struck with the remarkable coincidence in opinion, respecting the distribution of Insects as given by Mr. Hope, wh, that 
of the Author on the geographical distribution of the Flora of the plains and mountains of India.—J. F, R. . 
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