37 2 ENTOMOLOGY 



viduals may have been constantly swept out to sea and 

 drowned, leaving the more feeble-winged and less venturesome 

 individuals behind, to reproduce their own life-saving pecu- 

 liarities. 



The Coleoptera of the Hawaiian Islands, studied by Dr. 

 Sharp, number 428 species, representing 38 families, and " are 

 mostly small or very minute insects, " the few large forms being 

 non-endemic, with little or no doubt; 352 species are at present 

 known only from this archipelago. Dr. Sharp distinguishes 

 three elements in the fauna : " First, species that have been 

 introduced, in all probability comparatively recently, by artifi- 

 cial means, such as with provisions, stores, building timber, 

 ballast, or growing plants; many of these species are nearly 

 cosmopolitan. Second, species that have arrived in the islands, 

 and have become more or less completely naturalized ; they are 

 most of them known to be wood- or bark-beetles, but some that 

 are not so may have come with the earth adhering to the roots 

 of floating trees; a few, such as the Dytiscidae, or water beetles, 

 may possibly have been introduced by violent winds. Third, 

 after making every allowance for introduction by these artifi- 

 cial and natural methods, there still remains a large portion 

 standing out in striking contrast with the others, which we 

 are justified in considering strictly endemic or autochthonous." 

 Among the introduced genera are Coccinella, Dermestes, 

 Aphodius, Buprestis, Ptinns and Cerambyx. The immigrant 

 longicorns appear to have been derived " from the nearest 

 lands in various directions " the Philippine Islands, tropical 

 America and the Polynesian Islands and the same conclusion 

 will probably be found to hold for the other immigrants, when 

 their general distribution shall have been sufficiently studied. 

 The endemic species number 214, or exactly half the total num- 

 ber of species, and are distributed among 9 families, as follows : 



