president's address — SECTION D. 91 



show a curious relationship between AustraHa and South 

 America and it is thus worth noticing whether this rehition- 

 ship is indicated in the Tasmanian fauna. The genus Stig- 

 modera is closely allied to certain South American genera 

 and, as we have seen above, this genus is remarkably poorly 

 develo]ied in Tasmania. The genus Curis again is found in 

 Australia and Cliili. It has 13 species on the Australian 

 continent scattered over Western and South Australia, 

 Victoria, New South AVales and Queensland, but is not 

 recorded from Tasmania. Achentsia, again, is a genus found 

 in Brazil and Tasmania but has no representative in 

 Tasmania. It must also be noted in connection with this 

 point that New Zealand is remarkal)ly deficient in this family, 

 Mr. Sharp, in his list of New Zealand Coleoptera, only 

 recording two minute and obscure forms. 



Mr. Wallace, in dealing with the Buprestida>, says: — 

 " Here we have a striking contrast to the Cetonidce and we 

 can hardly help concluding that as the latter is typically a 

 tropical family so the present family although now so largely 

 tropical had an early and perhaps original development in 

 the temperate regions of Australia spreading thence to 

 temperate South America as well as to the tropical regions 

 of Asia and Africa." And again, "these resemblances {i.e., 

 between Australia and South America) may probably have 

 arisen from intercommunications during the warm southern 

 period when floating timber would occasionally transmit a 

 few larvte of this family from island to island across the 

 Antarctic Seas. When the cold period returned they would 

 spread northwards and become more or less modified under 

 the new physical and organic competition to which they were 

 subjected." 



These quotations show that Mr. Wallace is of opinion 

 that the Buprestidce spread southwards from Australia 

 duj'ing the period when, doubtless, the projecting southern 

 parts stretched still further to the south than now they do and 

 formed an intermittent connection with Antarctic lands, 

 across which, postulating a warmer climate than now exists, 

 animal life might pass and reach South Africa and South 

 America. If the distribution of the JBiqjrestidce has taken 

 place in this wav then it is a curious fact and one very 

 difficult of explanation that the two southernmost portions of 

 the Australian region — Victoria and Tasmania on the one 

 hand, and, more noticeably still, New Zealand on the other — 

 are just those parts which are poorest in representatives of 

 the family. 



