114 



THE CARABIDAE OF TASJIAXIA, 



beiug the rudiment of a stria now more or less lost. The clue to the 

 original striation of the elytra may be found in tlie tribe Migadopiui of tlie 

 Southern Hemisphere, and in the Holarctic genus Pelophila, where an extra 

 second stria is found basad from the apical declivity. The text figures given 

 below show the four distinctive forms of the normal Carab striation with regard 

 to the scutellar striole. 



Fig. 1 is the pattern of the striation in Calyptogunia ater SI., a Migadopid 

 from Tasmania, viz., ten striae on the basal two thirds, and nine towards the 

 apex as a result of the abbreviation of the second stria. 



Fig. 2 shows the junction of the first stria with the remnant of the second 

 stria as exemplified by Dicrochile ventralis Blackb. 



Fig. 3 gives the second stria reduced to a striole at the base of the second 

 interstice as occurring in Gtiathaphunus herhaceus SI. 



Fig. 4 is drawn from the elytra of Culadromus elseyi to show the commonest 

 form of striation in the Carabidae; here the base of the first stria has become the 

 scutellar striole owing to the capture of the first stria by the second. 



It may be assumed that a strong tendency towards the reduction of the ori- 

 ginal second stria by shrinking away from the apex must have developed very 

 early in the history of the Carabidae, and that in many cases the reduced st;cond 

 stria became united with the first; this union of the first and second striae has 

 then been the means of the tendency for the elimination of one stria having been 

 transferred to the basal part of the first stria. Often the second stria has been 

 completely lost where the reduction has continued on the second interstice, but 

 it is very rarely that when the base of the first stria has become the striole, it 

 has been altogether atrophied. 



Fig. 1. Calyp/os^oaia atcr Sloane. 



Fig. 3. (iiiat/uiplianus herbaceus Sloane. 



Fig. 2. Dicrochile r'eiilicilis Blackliurn. 

 Fig. 4. Catadromiis elseyi White. 



