PRESENT DISTRIBUTION OF ALLIED SPECIES. 79 



searches of Count Saporta upon the rich flora of this region at the same epoch, 

 points to very nearly the same results as are here indicated. In his Examen des 

 flores tertiaires de Provence? when writing of the characteristics of the Aix flora, 

 Count Saporta says (page 150) that about one-fifth of the families represented in it 

 are now strangers to Europe; that fifty-one genera have an exotic and more or less 

 tropical aspect, and that forty out of seventy-four, or about one-half, if not exclu- 

 sively tropical, inhabit the warmer parts of southern regions, or, in small numbers, 

 temperate extra-European countries. The result is still more striking, if species are 

 considered, of which there are at least eighty whose individual analogy with living 

 species is sufficiently clear to yield results of great probability. "De ces especes," 

 to use his own words, "12 seulement correspondent a des especes de 1'Europe 

 moyenne, 6 a des especes de 1'Europe meridionale, 18 en tout. Les especes cor- 

 respondant a des formes de 1'Amerique septentrionale ou des regions dlevees de 

 1'Amerique tropicale, sont au nombre de 10; celles qui repondent a des formes 

 de 1'Amerique tropicale s'elevent a 9 ... ; 3 correspondent a des especes du 

 Cap et 2 a des especes des iles Atlantiques et de la Barbaric; 14 representent des 

 formes particulieres aux Indes ou aux iles de PArchipel indien et 30, enfin, cor- 

 respondent a des formes australiennes. Le groupe australien est done le plus 

 considerable, si on les prend isolement. En les reunnissant, on voit que sur les 

 80 et quelqiies especes, 28 a 30 seulement correspondent a des formes habitant 

 aujourd'hui 1'Europe et 1'Amerique du Nord, en y comprenant meme les parties 

 meridionales de ces continents; tandis que 57 au moins, soit 60 en nombre rond, 

 representent des formes tropicales ou subtropicales, et dans ce nombre 40 au moins, 

 c'est-a-dire la moitie du nombre total se rapportent au Cap, aux [151] Indes ori- 

 entales ou a 1'Australie ; de sorte que le caractere dominant de cette flore est encore 

 Austro-indien, quoique dans une proportion deja decroissante par rapport a 1'age 

 precedant." 



This was published in 1861, and would accord entirely with what we know of 

 the butterflies of Aix and their nearest allies. But eleven years later, after study- 

 ing the great amount of material which had meanwhile accumulated, Saporta seems 



1 Heer et Gaudiu, Climat du pays tertiaire, pp. 133-171. 



