f oxxx ) 



Australia and td North Imlia ami tlip Pacific Palaearctic Snlwtrinii * : ami eonplo 

 these facts with tiio absence of inJigenons genera from the Archipelago (except 

 tlie Malayan Oii/ioifi'opal/j'i.f) and tlie scarcity of peculiar species, it becomes 

 liiy-iilv probable that one ami tiie same canse lies at the bottom of these 

 phenomena in distribntion. The siinjilest explanation would be lo assume that 

 the Australian and Asiatic Continents were at au early period in the history of 

 the Sitliiiitiifhii at least as closely connected as they are now, the connection 

 allowing of the Asiatic fauna extending into Australia, and that later the inter- 

 jai'ent district became so fur submerged that the fauna was practically destroyed. 

 With the separation of Asia and Australia by a wide gap, the condition for 

 tlie evolution of special genera and species was given in Australia. The reason 

 for the seven endemic genera of tropical Australia not having migrated over the 

 Pajiuan Islands mav be jiurely biological : or it is possible that at least two of 

 tliem {Lruromonid and 'rctrarliron) really do occur outside Australia, but have 

 not yet been found. 



The Indo-Malayau Subregion has twice as many species of Sphingidae as 

 tlie Papuan Subregion, there occiu'ring nearly lOD species, of which 1.5i)-odd do 

 nor extend into the Papuan eonntries. Tiie cause of tlie contrast is easily 

 pirceiitible. Papuasia is isolated from all t'ontinents except Asia. Its entire 

 Sphingid population is Indian in extraction, perhaps with the exception of 

 CoenoteA, which has closer affinities to the Neotropical ]S\'oge.ne. Since tiie 

 greater proportion of the Spliini/idae are swift-flying and of wide distribution, 

 and as a good many exist under adverse climatical conditions, and hence prove 

 themselves to be remarkably adaptive, it appears to us to follow that the 

 Sphingid fiinna of Australia would contain a good mixture of South American 

 and African elements, if there had ever, within the history of Sphingidai', existed 

 an Antarctic ('ontiiient connecting these countries with one another, and suitable 

 for the existence of Hawk Moths. India and the neighbouring tro))ical districts 

 of Asia, on the other hand, have had an influx from the North and West, and, 

 being nionntainous, offered at the same time the necessary conditions of life for 

 the maintenance of a great variety of species. It is especially the Nortli East 

 of India, and most likely P>urma and t'hina — both of which are very imjicrfectly 

 explored — that harbour the largest mimber of Sphingidae. South and West 

 India are much jioorcr in Sp/diigidae, as is indeed the case with nearly all 

 groups of Lepidojitera. Though the absence of very many of the Himalayan 

 species and genera from f!eylon and South India is compensated for to a certain 

 degree by the appearance of some forms which do not extend to Sikhim, Assam, 

 and Burma, we emphasise that the Western Peninsula and Ceylon have very 

 few species of their own and no genus peculiar to themselves, the differences 

 being chiefly subspccific. The significance of this fact will be understood if we 

 add that a few Palaearctic and African species reach into the Western Peninsula 

 or the adjacent North 'Western districts {Macroglossum sti-Uatarum, hcUephibi 



• Tlic Australiiin PainUn lemthoH'*, wliiuh has its nearest relatives in Asia ami Eurupe, may be 

 Dicutioued in tliis connection. 



