348 ME. Q. LEWIS ON JAPANESE LANGUBUDJE. 



species also inliabit Japan. Of the few nortliern Languriidse 

 which overstep this line by 1200 miles, and to which these notes 

 relate, comparative diminutiveness in size and sombreness in 

 colour are the most striking characteristics ; and the same may 

 be said of the species of the United States, which reach as high as 

 lat. 42° or 43°. We observe also that the Japanese species agree 

 in facies and general outline with the forms in equinoctial Asia ; 

 and in the western hemisphere it is also true that the dominant 

 types of the American continent are found south of Mexico. 

 Harold has pointed out that Languria nigripes, Crotch, =;?Zj- 

 formis, F. ; and in the British Museum there are examples of the 

 latter from Sumatra, Java, Luzon, and China ; and of the little 

 Microlanguria Jansoni I have specimens which I took at Colombo, 

 one of the hottest places in the island of Ceylon. Here are two 

 species therefore which are common both to Japan and to coun- 

 tries lying under, or close to, the equator. All this suggests a 

 tropical origin as probable for these species, an hypothesis which 

 may perhaps be extended also to their allies. Languria prceusta 

 probably occupies as wide an area of distribution as L. nigri^pes ; 

 I have myself taken it at Yokohama and in Hongkong, places 

 distant from each other by an ocean-line of 1500 miles. 



In the Munich Catalogue, 1876, there are only 114 species of 

 Languriidse given ; and Harold, in the paper cited, describes in 

 1879 about 40 more ; yet the total, say 160, can be but a small 

 portion of those existing in nature, or even actually now extant 

 in our collections. Harold merges Pacliylangiiria, Tetralanguria, 

 Fatua, Callilanguria (allied to DotMedaga, figured here), aud 

 Crotch's other genera in Languria ; and thus reduces the whole 

 family to one genus, because it is at present an insufficiently 

 studied group and requires revision. My own investigation 

 leads me to accept Crotch's genera, and even to suggest one more. 

 Crotch's Languria Jansoni, with " coarsely granulated eyes, elon- 

 gate antennge, 3-jointed club, and short tarsi," I liave called 

 Microlanguria. Languria Mozardi, Latr., from Texas, is the type 

 of the genus Languria ; and the points of dissimilarity between 

 it and those in Section I. of this note, to which the Japanese 

 L. ingens belongs, are more than sufficient to found a genus on, 

 if the members of the group were numerous enoughi to render this 

 desirable. I think also that L. trifoliata, Harold, may well be 

 separated later, as it is one of a section having a pecidiar form and 

 structure, of wMch there are many species in Ceylon, the indi- 



