great group of true dung-beetles, as might indeed have been 

 expected in the case of a region which in all probability has 

 never supported any terrestrial Mammalia except two small 

 species of bats, are here represented only by a very few 

 small forms of Saphohius {Copridae) and Ataenius {Aphodiidae), 

 which are found under bark and in vegetable refuse. The 

 very curious little blind Aphodiid Pkycochus graniceps Broun, 

 which lives in the sand under half-buried logs at high-water 

 mark on the coasts, has, singularly enough, been found under 

 similar conditions in Tasmania, in comj)any with another 

 member of the genus. The Dytiscidae number only sixteen 

 species, and only one of these, the rare Homoeodytes {Cyhister) 

 hooJceri White is of large size ; our familiar Rhantus pulverosus 

 Steph., whose range extends from our own islands to Tongatabu 

 in mid-Pacific, being of very common occurrence. The 

 Chrysomelidae again are few in species, except perhaps in 

 the Galerucine genus Luperus, and they do not present a 

 single form of large size or striking appearance. On the 

 other hand the Cicindelidae, Hydrophilidae, Stapliylinidae, 

 Lucanidae, Elateridae and Dascillidae, as well as the Heteromera, 

 are relatively much better represented, and the Longicornes 

 can boast of some 220 species, a large number for a temperate 

 region, though only two of these, Prionoplus reticularis F, 

 and Ochrocydus huttoni Pasc, both among the most conspicuous 

 of New Zealand insects, represent the large section of the 

 Prioninae. The Carahidae, of which, however, the first sub- 

 family (Carabides) has for its sole exponent the very anomalous 

 Amarotypus edwardsi Bates, forms one of the largest and 

 most important elements of the Coleopterous fauna, being 

 only exceeded in this respect by the CurcuUonidae, of which 

 family more than a thousand species are now known from 

 the New Zealand region. The sub-family Cossoninae, which 

 is characteristic of insular insect faunae in an eminent degree, 

 is here developed to an extent proportionately exceeded else- 

 where only in the Hawaiian Islands and in St. Helena. A 

 single tree, the Nikau {Rhopalostylis sapida Sol.), the sole 

 endemic palm, supports an interesting series of some eight 

 or ten species included in four genera, and other remarkable 

 forms of the sub-family are restricted to the tree-ferns 



