228 MR. A. MURRAY'S MONOGRAPH OF THE FAMILY OF NITIDULARLE. 
leave the bones as nearly in the state of phosphate of lime as external treatment can. In 
another point of view, however, their employment is wholesale and wide enough. "They 
conduct their operations all over the world, their branches extend into the most remote 
districts; the materials with which they have to do, although mere waste, have no other 
limit to their variety or their number than the organized substances found on the surface 
of the globe. As in all great establishments, too, the principle of division of labour is 
carried to a great extent. Each different kind of substance has a different member of 
the firm told off to take charge of it. One species confines itself to rotten oranges, 
another to bones, a third to putrid fungi, a fourth to decaying figs. Decaying wood, 
decaying bark, decaying flowers, decaying leaves, all furnish distinct employment to 
different species. 
They are not all scavengers, however. Many pass their lives in flowers; others feed 
upon fresh vietuals ; and Mr. Frederick Smith of the British Museum has, whilst I write, 
brought to my notice a species of Brachypeplus (B. auritus) which he has received from 
Australia, in a wild bee's nest, where it feeds, both in the larva and perfect state, on the 
wax and honey. 
With such extensive functions, it follows that the family is cosmopolitan; so are most : 
of the genera and even a few of the species. The wide distribution of these is no 
doubt due to the universal presence of their food and to their introduction into distant 
countries by accidental causes, of which the migrations of man are probably the most 
prominent; but there are occasional instances of species so nearly alike to others (whose 
habitat is at great distances) as to be scarcely distinguishable, and yet on close examination 
certainly distinct, and whose occurrence in such distant localities it is very difficult to 
account for. Take, for example, the genus Stelidota, which is properly an American form, 
seeing that out of nineteen or twenty species all are from the American continent, except 
one from Tahiti, one from Celebes, and two from Madagascar. . (I do not include here 
another large species from Celebes, which forms the passage from Stelidota to Lordites, 
and which I have constituted a separate genus.) Of the Madagascar species one is SO 
very like the commonest North American species (St. geminata), that, if placed among 
a number of them and passed off as coming from America, it would probably never be 
detected as different, although when forewarned by the locality, and looking for distine- 
tions, it is rightly viewed as a distinct species. How are we to account for this close 
resemblance? The transference of a species from Carolina to Madagascar without man’s 
assistance is not easily conceived ; and if we imagine that 3 0 geminata has been 
introduced by ships from North America, the period of introduction must have been 
comparatively recent —not more than 200 years ago. Can we believe that in that short 
space of time climatal causes have changed Stelidota geminata into St. didyma? No 
introduction, of either plant or animal, from the oldest time to which introduced species 
have been traced back, has, so far as we know, ever resulted in an alteration in the 
species, without man’s assistance by breeding or cultivation ; and if we were to adopt bhas 
solution in the case of Stelidota didyma we could not refuse to extend it to the other species, 
St. orphana, which again is a little more removed from St. geminata. Our explanation 
would then be that the latter had been introduced from North America into Madagascar, 
