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XII. Revision of the Pselaphidse of Japan. 

 By D. Sharp. 



[Read July 4th, 1883.] 



Until the year 1874 nothing whatever was known 

 about the Japanese Pselaphidce, but in that year I was 

 enabled to describe, in the Society's ' Transactions,' 

 twenty-four species of the family discovered by Mr. 

 Lewis ; and shortly afterwards Herr Julius Weise added, 

 in the 'Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift,' three 

 others found by Mr. Hiller at Hagi. Mr. Lewis has 

 recently returned from a second visit to the Archipelago, 

 bringing back with him a magnificent collection of 

 Coleoptera, which we may hope will be well worked out, 

 for it is sufficiently extensive to enable us to form an 

 approximately just estimate of this department of the 

 Japanese fauna, and to compare it with those of Europe 

 and North America. What amount of endemic pecu- 

 liarity in its fauna the Archipelago will ultimately prove 

 to possess must, however, still remain undetermined, 

 owing to the excessively imperfect state of our knowledge 

 of the natural history of the neighbouring regions, the 

 entomology of the North of China and of the Korea 

 being among the least known of any part of the world. 

 So far as the fauna of Eastern Siberia goes, there does 

 not appear to be so great an identity between it and that 

 of Japan, as from their geographical propinquity we 

 might expect. 



Mr. Lewis' recent discoveries enable me to bring the 

 list of Japanese Pselaphidce to sixty-seven species, 

 assigned to seventeen genera, nine of these latter being, 

 so far as we at present know, peculiar to Japan. Nearly 

 one-half of the Japanese members of the family I have 

 assigned to the genus Batrisus, which is one of the most 

 extensive and widely distributed of the components of 

 the family. The Japanese representatives of this genus 

 are extremely varied, and, if studied without relation to 

 those of other countries, might form several genera ; 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1883. PART III. (AUG.) 



