1902.] Catalogue of the Golcoptera of South Africa. 627 



the eastern limit, where the average rainfall in August and 

 September is from 3 to 4 inches. It is in this restricted locality 

 that the number and abundance of Hopliin^ are so characteristic. 

 Of the total numljer of 43 genera and 359 species, 25 genera and 

 236 species occur in that area. It is especially in that pai"t of the 

 country extending from Clanwilliam to Little Bushmanland, and 

 forming part of the Namaqualand District, that they are found 

 in incredible numbers and ever-varying species if the rains have 

 been plentiful. When I visited that part of the Colony the rains 

 had not been heavy, the fields, nevertheless, were a mass of partly 

 withered marigolds and daisies containing only a few insects, mostly 

 females. I was one month too late. But when, profiting by my 

 experience, Mr. E. M. Lightfoot went over the same ground two 

 months earlier than I did, and after plentiful rains had fallen, the 

 whole country was a vast carpet of huge marigolds tenanted by num- 

 berless HoPLiiN^. So plentiful indeed were they that they had to 

 be scooped by the hand from the flower into the killing bottle. No 

 less than 10 species of Pachy enema seem to be restricted to that 

 locality, but Anisonyx is not represented there, and the species of 

 this genus seem to be met with especially where the Heaths 

 (Ericacece) abound. They are more numerous and more varied in 

 the Caledon and Eiversdale, but they are plentiful also in the 

 Cape, Stellenbosch, and Ceres, Districts. Two species are found, 

 however, near Graham's Town and Port Elizabeth respectively. 

 These localities seem to be their eastern limit of distribution. 



Proceeding eastwards from the 24° long, we find the Pachyciw- 

 mini especially represented by the genus Eriesthis ; Pachycncma has 

 one I'epresentative in the neighbourhood of Graham's Town, but on 

 the whole the suctorial Hopliin^ are rare, or never very numerous 

 beyond the area mentioned, but in the last-named locality we find a 

 very singular species of Hoplocncmis differing much from the other 

 species of the genus, which generally occur in the so-called " Karroo," 

 where rains are scarce and the vegetation is very scanty. Heteroche- 

 lides are fairly common from the 24° to the 27° East, they, however, 

 grow scarcer as we near Natal, and the most northern species is 

 recorded from Eshowe in Zululand. So far they have not been met 

 with, to my knowledge, in the Eastern or J^]thiopian region of South 

 Africa. None are recorded from the Orange Eiver Colony, but in 

 the Transvaal we meet with three species, one of which occurs 

 also in Natal and another, the two congeners of which are found 

 only in the Cape Colony, in the calyx of the so-called " Sugar bush." 

 It is worthy of note that I have received a female of one of these 

 two congeneric species {Diaplochelus longipcs) from Kanye in 



