378 Mr, G. Lewis on 



the Heteromera for the ' Biologia/ a work which involved an 

 exhaustive research in tlie literature of the family. My own 

 collection of Tenebrionida? scarcely includes 500 species, and 

 is insufficient to work upon, while my acquaintance with the 

 family as a wliole is very limited. 



The European genera which are most remarkable in con- 

 taining Japanese species are Amaraniha^ Arrhenoplita, Cor- 

 ticeus, Platydema, ScapMdemay and BoUtopharjus ; the last 

 genus contains B. reticulaius, L., the only species not asso- 

 ciated with commerce which has been found in Japan, Siberia, 

 and the British Islands. The most salient feature of the 

 species of this series is that so many belong to oriental, 

 tropical, and subtropical genera, such as Atasthalus, Byrsax, 

 Ceropria^ Hemicera, Sefem's, Tkydemus, Eucyrtus, Tetra- 

 p/iyllus, Basanus, and Ischnodactyhis ; and I think this may 

 be accounted for by the fact that the Coleopterous fauna of 

 tropical Asia contains a very large proportion of Hete- 

 romerous beetles. Tliis proportion consists, not, as in 

 Europe, of genera such as Helojys, Pimelia, Blaps, and Asida, 

 each of which contains perhaps a hundred species, but of 

 genera in which the species are limited in number, and there- 

 fore, taken as a whole, are species with great diversity of 

 habit and capable as such of thriving under more varying 

 conditions ; and these in Japan, with its enormous forests, 

 are exceedingly favourable to insect-life. 



During the spring of 1882 I collected 1620 species of 

 Coleoptera in Ceylon, of which 104 pertain to the Tene- 

 brionidaj; this is in very much larger proportion to those 

 found in Japan, which, at a rough calculation for the larger 

 figure, are as 12/3 to 4500. But in 1S81 I left the southern 

 island of Kiushiu on the ord of June, before the heat of 

 summer and heavy rains set in, and I missed seeing that year 

 many of the subtropical species which emerged from the 

 pupal state in July and August. Some of these species are 

 Ilemlcera zigzaga, Kotiolesthus fovcolatus^ T/iydemus purpurt- 

 viitatiis, Strongyliiiin japaniim and J/rt?^se«/^*, and I think that 

 there can be but little doubt that if a collection of Coleoptera 

 were made in the provinces of Higo and Satzuma during and 

 after the rainy season, the discovery of novelties of this sub- 

 tropical class would be considerable. But lest it should be 

 supposed that the tropical clement is a very strong one, a 

 glance at the list of species will show that the tropical genera, 

 such as Eucyrtusj are represented by only one small species, 

 while in the tropics the species of Eucyrtus are very nume- 

 rous. 



