( I'xxvi ) 



respective Orieiitiil uiul Nootroiiicul goiicra is so close that we must consider 

 the relationsbip real. 



The rest of 51 genera are ciulcmic to the (ropics of the Old World. Most 

 of these genera are Indian. Their distribution shows that the division of the 

 Oriental Region into a western and an eastern Subregion is not better established 

 in the Sphiiiqiilae than in most other families of Lepidoptera. There is no line 

 of division. The Papuan and the Indian elements, eacli taken as a whole, overlap. 

 There are, however, two centres in the development of s])ecies in the Oriental 

 S]ihingid fauna: Continental India (inclusive of Burma and tropical China, of 

 which the .Spliiniiidac are very imi)eifectly known), and trojiical Australia and 

 the Papuan Islands. Tlic Mahiy Arcliipelago, from the Malay Peninsula to the 

 Molueeas and the Tenimber Islands, is exceedingly poor in species of its own, 

 and possesses only one genus ])eculiar to itself, Giganfeopalpus, of which the 

 single species is as yet found only on Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. All the other 

 Oriental genera which do not occnr on the mainland are found only in Australia, 

 not even in New Guinea, all the Spldngklae of the Papuan and Pacific Islands 

 eastward to Fiji and Tahiti being members of genera ranging to India and 

 partly to Africa. The island of Celebes has no single species of its own, and 

 only two or three subspecies, which is very remarkable, considering that the island 

 has a very distinctive population in many families of Lepidoptera and of other 

 animals. Though the distribution of the Sphimjidae over the Archipelago is not 

 fully known, the following table will give an approximate idea of the extent of 

 the Indian and Papuan species in the Archipelago. We leave out all the Indo- 

 Chinese species which have not been found in the Arehijielago, but add the 

 Australian ones ; to shorten the table, we exclude also the species common to 

 both Subregions. The Papuan species are marked with an asterisk (*). The 

 column "India" embiaces Continental Asia as far as it belongs to the Oriental 

 Region ; the " Lesser Suuda Islands " comprise the islands from Lombok to Alor ; 

 the "Moluccas" the southern and northern Moluccas (Amboina, Ceram, Burn, 

 Batjan, etc.) ; "Tenimber" includes the islands between Timorlaut and Wetter; 

 and "Oceania" means the islands south and east of the Solomon Islands: — 



