504? GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 



fined to the latter, where its range is very extensive; 

 in Europe, from South Russia to Italy and Spain ; in 

 Asia, from Siberia to India; and in Africa, from the 

 shores of the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope ; 

 which last continent, to judge from our present lists, es- 

 pecially the vicinity of the Cape, may be called the me- 

 tropolis of the group 3 . On the other hand, the Rutelidte 

 and ChlamyS) which have a range from Canada to the 

 tropics, (within which is their metropolis,) are purely 

 American groups. Many more might be named under 

 this head, but these will suffice for examples. 



3. I call those subdominant groups, which either never 

 enter the tropics, or those tropical ones whose range 

 does not exceed 50 of N. L. in the old world, or 

 43 in the new. I make this difference because, as 

 M. Latreille observes, the southern insects which in 

 Europe begin between 48 and 49 N. L., in America do 

 not reach 43. b But though the winters in Canada, 

 within the same parallel as France, are longer and more 

 severe than those even of Great Britain or of Germany, 

 yet the summers are intensely hot ; so that though tro- 

 pical species do not range so high, those of a tropical 

 structure, as Mr. W. S. MacLeay has intimated , may 

 be found at a higher latitude in the new world than in 

 Europe. 



The genus Meloe affords an instance of a subdomi- 

 nant group of the first description. It ranges from Swe- 

 den to Spain and the shores of the Mediterranean, and 

 seems a tribe almost confined to Europe, where it is not 



s Out of 51 species described by Bilberg, 28 are African, and 19 

 of these are from the Cape. 



b Geogr, Gener* des Ins. 18. Hor, Entomolog. 45. 



