474 MR. H. W. BATES ON INSECTS FROM MADAGASCAR. [NoV. 24, 



birds — 26 out of 90 genera of insects being peculiar, whilst in birds 

 there are 29 genera out of 141 — ornithological genera seeming to 

 form groups of a lower rank than those usual in entomology. An 

 examination of the Madagascar genera which are not African brings 

 to light the Indian element, but not in so prominent a way as that 

 claimed by Dr. Hartlaub as a result of his analysis of the bird fauna. 

 For out of the 64 genera not peculiar to the island, no less than 61 

 are also represented in Africa — two only of the remaining three being 

 Indian or South-east Asian forms, and the third Indian and Ame- 

 rican, but not African. Lastly, of the 26 exclusively Madagascar 

 genera, all have their nearest relatives in African forms except two, 

 and these are very remarkable ; for one, the Cetoniade genus Chro- 

 moptila, claims for its next relative Bombodes, a Himalayan genus ; 

 and the second, the Cicindelide Pogonostoma, is closely allied to a 

 purely Tropical American form, Ctenostoma, — the two genera indeed 

 forming an isolated subfamily thoroughly distinct from any other 

 group. 



I think it will be admitted, notwithstanding these discrepancies, 

 that there is a great general similarity in the results arrived at by 

 Dr. Hartlaub' s analysis of the birds and the present examination of 

 a portion of the insects. The differences with regard to the relation- 

 ship of the fauna, I think, tend to show that Dr. Hartlaub has 

 rather overestimated the importance of the Indian element, and that 

 Dr. Sclater's view, namely, that in Madagascar the African organic 

 type is pushed to its extreme development, lies much nearer the 

 truth. Why should Indian rather than African relationship be 

 claimed for the Madagascar fauna, when, according to his own show- 

 ing, only three or four Indian species with four genera are contained 

 in it, whilst it has 42 African species and 23 African genera ? 



If the existence of a small number of Indian or Archipelagic genera 

 in Madagascar and Mauritius, unknown in continental Africa, be a 

 fact which must influence our views of the Madagascar fauna, so 

 must also the occurrence of a genus having a near relationship only 

 to a Tropical American form, especially as this latter is not a solitary 

 fact — another Madagascar insect (belonging to a family which I have 

 not included in this examination), namely Ui-ania ripheus, belonging 

 (or having been considered until very lately to belong) to a purely 

 Tropical American genus. The presence of these anti-African ele- 

 ments, the absence of so many families and orders of MammaHa 

 common on the neighbouring continent, and, lastly, the existence of 

 numerous genera and species quite peculiar to the island constitute, 

 doubtless, the main features of the fauna of Madagascar. The pecu- 

 liarity of the endemic genera and species, however, must not be over- 

 rated through dwelling too much on the great singularity of a few of 

 them. There are extremely few entire families or subfamilies wholly 

 peculiar to this island ; indeed in the portion of the insect fauna 

 which I have examined there are none, and in the birds there are 

 only two small families of this kind, each of which is represented by 

 a single genus. Were Madagascar a distinct zoological province, as 

 some naturalists have seemed inclined to maintain, there ought to 



