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on him by the prodigious mllux of new species from countries 

 year by year opened up by the growing facilities of communication 

 and travel. The world for the Entomologist is larger than it 

 used to be, and Nature proves to be a hundi'ed times more prolific 

 and varied in her forms than used to be thought possible. Thus 

 our best working Entomologists are led to abandon general views, 

 both from lack of time to work them out, and the consciousness 

 that general views on the relations of forms and faunas are 

 liable to become soon obsolete by the rapid gro^^i;h of knowledge. 

 I will cite a few instances, to show how naturally this result is 

 brought about. A passing reference need only be made to 

 troi)ical countries, which yield a continued stream of species and 

 genera previously unknown, the affinities of which are a puzzle 

 requiring long study to unravel. A more instructive case is that 

 of Australia, the number of whose knoTvnii insect productions, 

 especially Coleoptera, has prodigiously increased during the last 

 ten years, the new discoveries necessitating a revision of the views 

 previously entertained regarding the nature of the fauna of this 

 part of the world. In the fajinily Carahida', which has been better 

 worked than most others, the recent additions amount to hundreds 

 of species, having often a near, but very peculiar, relationship to 

 forms of the same family in North Temperate Eegions. It 

 could never have been anticipated that, next to the Palsearctic 

 Eegion, Australia would be richest in species and genera t)f the 

 great Feronia group in this family, and all generalizations on the 

 subject ten years ago would therefore have been since falsified. 

 It is the same with many Oceanic Islands. Ten years ago, with 

 regard to New Zealand, the statement was acquiesced in that 

 these islands had an extremely scanty insect Fauna, and that 

 what they did possess belonged to the Australian type. You may 

 all have remarked how large a part of our own ' Transactions,' 

 and other periodicals of the Metropolis, has of late years 

 been occupied by descriptions of New Zealand insects ; the 

 known number of which is still rapidly increasing, thanks to 

 the researches of persevering collectors, like Hutton, Brown, 

 Wakefield, Fereday, and Lawson. According to our present 

 knowledge, the Insect Fauna is quite distinct from that of 

 Australia, and its origin must be accounted for by a totally 

 distinct set of causes. — Again ; an isolated oceanic rock like 

 St. Helena, when examined by a skilled Entomologist like our 



