CHAP. XXI.] INSECTS. 425 



to Australia and South America. The Nearctic and Palsearctic 

 regions have 3 genera in common, which are found in no other 

 part of the world. 



Among the special features of interest connected with the 

 distribution of this family, we must first notice the exceptional 

 richness of Madagascar, which alone possesses 21 peculiar 

 genera. South Africa is also very rich, having 8 peculiar 

 genera. Stethodesma is very peculiar, being divided between 

 South America and Mexico on the one hand, and West and 

 South Africa on the other. Stalagmosoma is a desert genus, 

 ranging from Persia to Dongola. No genus is cosmopolitan, or 

 even makes any approach to being so, except Valgus, which 

 occurs in all the regions except the Neotropical ; and even the 

 family seems to be not universally distributed, since no species 

 are recorded either from New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, or 

 the Antilles. 



The facts here brought forward, lead us to the conclusion that 

 the Cetoniidfe are an Old- World tropical family, which had 

 been well developed in Africa and Asia before it spread to 

 Australia and America ; and that it is only capable of being 

 freely dispersed in the warmer regions of the earth. This view 

 will explain the absence of afiinity between the Australian and 

 Neotropical regions, the only closer connection between which, 

 has almost certainly occurred in the colder portions of the Tem- 

 perate zone. 



BUPEESTID^. (109 Genera, 2,686 Species.) 



The next family suited to our purpose is that of the Bupres- 

 tidse, consisting as it does of many large and some gigantic 

 species, generally adorned with briUiant metallic colours, and 

 attracting attention in all warm countries. Although these in- 

 sects attain their full development of size and beauty only in 

 the Tropics, they are not much less abundant in the warmer 

 parts of the Temperate zone. In the Catalogue of the Coleop- 

 tera of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, by M. de Marseul 

 (1863), we find 317 species of Buprestidse enumerated, although 



