visit to Ceylon. 483 



even so far distant as Japan, and I can select a long 

 series of cognate forms from both places which would 

 agree with and run close to each other, and the resem- 

 blance between the forms in adjacent countries must be 

 greater. Amongst the smaller Coleoptera I have obtained 

 much of interest in species, unknown as yet in museums, 

 but there is no reason for supposing these are purely 

 local forms, for it must be remembered the small Cole- 

 optera of India are quite unknown. 



Entomologists will be aware that most of my remarks 

 will apply in a great part to South India, and per- 

 haps even in a greater degree still to some of the isles 

 of the great Eastern Archipelago, and then more gene- 

 rally to all tropical and subtropical parts of the globe 

 where copious rain covers the land with dense vege- 

 tation, and where a xylophilous fauna in Coleoptera 

 takes the place of the geophilous. But until my 

 collection has been carefully examined, and the species 

 referred to their right genera, it is impossible to tabu- 

 late them with any clear arrangement which would 

 add much to the interest of this note. Enough has been 

 shown to stamp the Ceylonese fauna generally as one in- 

 timately associated with, and dependent on, the flora, and 

 that both have grown up together, each gradually acquir- 

 ing habits or developing instincts as the propensities of 

 each have been enforced by the innate progression of 

 their natures, by the changing conditions of the globe, 

 or by their mutual necessities and advantages as present 

 in their common relations to each other. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1882. — PART III. (SEPT.) 3 R 



