DISTRIBUTION OF COLEOPTERA. 81> 



last mentioned are enumerated and described, with bibliograjjhy and 

 localities; the description of the brachelytra and some other minute 

 things having been furnished by Maeklin. This includes all the 

 Alaskan species made known in 1829 by Eschscholtz in his Zoolog- 

 ical Atlas, and by Menetries, Motschulsky and others in various 

 publications till 1853, since which time comparatively little has been 

 added from any and all sources to our knowledge of the Coleoptera 

 of that region. After excluding all species described from the Pa- 

 cific coast not found in Alaska, there remained 540 species belonging 

 to that fauna, the greater number of which occurred in iSitkha and 

 the peninsula of Kenai. As the species from Alaska, Siberia and 

 Arctic Europe mentioned in the following work, nearly all passed 

 through the same hands their identity is reasonably certain. 



The European distribution is indicated only in general. The 

 Asiatic is derived from various sources, and whoever desires to 

 pursue that distribution further will find the complete bibliography 

 in the Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Siberia and the Russ-Asiatic 

 provinces by Lucas von Hey den, Berlin, 1880-81, and 1885-87. 



A number of the species have undoubtedly been introduced fi-om 

 Europe into this country in articles of commerce, or by some acci- 

 dent, and have become naturalized ; others again are just as cer- 

 tainly indigenous in both hemispheres, while a certain nundier are 

 of doubtful origin, about which it has been thought best to express 

 no opinion, leaving this to individual speculation. 



At some remote period in the past Amei-ica and Asia were cer- 

 tainly connected on the North by land, and had then a nuich milder 

 climate than now exists, and, without doubt, when scientific enthu- 

 siasm shall have overcome the formidable obstacles that have hitherto 

 prevented all but the most superficial collecting in these inhospitable 

 regions of both continents, many species will be found to inhal)it 

 them in common. The species that are known to be indigenous to 

 both appear to have practically undergone no variation, though no 

 small division of time must have intervened since the separation of 

 their ancestors. Lorieera aerulescens, from Lake Superior and from 

 Scotland, do not seem to vary to the extent of a hair on the an- 

 tennae. Eretes sticticus, from Asia Minor and from Texas, appear 

 absokitely identical in every point. Corynibites tesseUotus, from 

 Canada and from the Italian Alps, can only be separated by the 

 labels, and I might enumerate many other species that I have seen 

 and compared. Several European species, not inckuled in this cata- 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. XVI. (12) MAKCH, 1889. 



