OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 213 



On some new Oardbidce from Port Darwin, 

 By William Macleay, F.L.S. 



By the Netherlands East Indian Company's steamer " William 

 Mackinnon," which arrived here from Batavia about a week ago, 

 I received from Mr. Spalding a large and valuable collection of 

 Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, Mollusks, Crustacea, Insects, 

 and other animals, both terrestrial and marine, from Port Darwin, 

 the capital of the South Australian Province of North Australia. 



The collection is extremely interesting, both in a zoological 

 and geographical point of view, and will probably form the sub- 

 ject of various Papers to be read before this Society. 



I propose to undertake, on my own part, an account of the 

 Fishes, Lizards, and Snakes, but want of time makes me limit 

 myself in the present Paper to a short notice of the Coleoptera 

 in the collection belonging to the Family Garabidce. I select this 

 Family, not only because it is to me the most interesting, but 

 because it is of all the Coleoptera the best represented in the 

 collection. There are 23 species of ground Carabidce alone, a 

 number most remarkable, when we consider the almost entire 

 absence of them at Cape York and the Islands of Torres Straits. 



But the chief attraction to me in this Port Darwin collection is 

 that it makes me acquainted with several rare and beautiful 

 things, described nearly 40 years ago, by Hope and Westwood 

 as coming from Port Essington. The government station, formed 

 there many years ago, has been long since abandoned, and there 

 seemed very little probability of again coming across any of the 

 very interesting Insects described from that locality. Port Darwin, 

 however, though 150 miles south-west of the old settlement, seems 

 to have a Fauna of a very similar character ; at all events, I can 

 recognise in the present collection some very remarkable and 

 conspicuous insects, which I never thought it would be my good 

 fortune to possess. 



Among the Garabidce I would particularize Garenum sumptuosum, 

 Westwood, the most gorgeously beautiful of a very beautiful group 



