Mr, G. Lewis on the Pyrochroidge of Japan. 167 



Pekin, Canton, and the Himalayan mountains is fairly well 

 investigated, and the material brought to Europe or taken to 

 America and worked out. From ten to fifteen thousand species 

 would be a very moderate collection for this territory. Within 

 its limits there are large forests of both deciduous and ever- 

 green trees growing at all the various altitudes of the 

 district, and the contents of them are, practically speaking, 

 unknown. It is not the low-lying areas which nurture 

 and harbour the distinctive species of the Japanese fauna, 

 these mostly yield Bemhidia and certain Hydradephaga and 

 Staphylinidse, which are much the same all the world 

 over ; there as elsewhere the higher altitudes give the cha- 

 racteristic species. The names of five or six of Herr 

 Kolbe's species will ultimately rank as synonyms, a result 

 inseparable from working on scant material. Korea is now 

 being opened up to foreign trade, and more and more every 

 year will travellers visit the country, and the natural history 

 be gradually worked out, while the laying down of rail- 

 ways in China will facilitate the making of collections there ; 

 and what I fear may happen is, that the species described 

 from Japan will not sufficiently engage the attention of 

 authors when at work on the new material, and the result will 

 be the creation of duplicate names. 



If this paper therefore should fall into the hands of any 

 entomologist who, in the course of writing a memoir, should 

 desire to examine specimens of any Japanese species I possess, 

 I shall be glad to submit to him compared types of all I can. 

 For this purpose I have retained as long a series as possible 

 of every species, and any labour on my part will be bestowed 

 cheerfully that may tend to gain one end I desire, namely, to 

 see a Catalogue of Japanese Coleoptera more free of syno- 

 nyms than any other local list yet issued. Under the present 

 rules of nomenclature the deletion of a single name is impos- 

 sible, and I know synonyms cannot be avoided altogether, 

 but, so far as the loan of types can go to prevent them, I am 

 willing to do what I can. I do not wish it to be understood 

 that I think an author may not legitimately refuse to acknow- 

 ledge the existence of types and decide to be guided by the 

 literature alone, I only offer the loan to those to whom it may 

 be acceptable. 



The Pyrochroa rufula, described in 1 860 by Motschulsky, 

 is not in the present series, and, as it formed part of Madame 

 Gaschkevitch's collection, some doubt exists whether it really 

 came from Japan. It has never transpired that this lady 

 labelled her collections, but it is now pretty well established 

 that some of the Lucanidse of the collection were gathered on 



