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XXVIII. On the Geographical Relations of the Coleoptera of Old Calabar. 

 By Andrew Murbat, Esq., F.L.S., Assist. Sec. Boy. Sort. Soc. 



Read February 6th, 1862. 



xHE late Prof. Edward Forbes's spectdation or theory that the South- American 

 continent was at one time united or in close proximity to Western Africa, in the 

 direction of the Sargasso Sea, has met with very general favour and acceptance ; but 

 the paper on the Orchidacese of Fernando Po, lately read to this Society by Dr. Lindley, 

 and other recent observations show that much evidence is still needed before it can be 

 said to be established. As a small contribution to the determination of this question 

 and its collateral issues (such as the former points of junction or of greatest proximity 

 of the two continents, and the lines by which the allied faunge and florae have been 

 dispersed), I shall lay before the Society a few memoranda relating to the geographical 

 affinities of the Coleoptera of Old Calabar, a part of West Africa of which comparatively 

 little is known, and which I have had favourable opportimities of studying through the 

 kindness of the Scottish missionaries who have established themselves there. 



I shall not attempt here to enter iuto an examination or description of the entire Co- 

 leopteran fauna of Old Calabar. That task I have already commenced in a work partially 

 published, and which, although for the present interrupted by more engrossing duties, 

 I trust ere long to resume. On the present occasion I shall limit my notice to a few 

 illustrations of the more remarkable affinities which I have observed between the Co- 

 leoptera of Old Calabar and those of other countries, and, in doing so, shall refrain 

 from noticing many species to which I could have referred as allied, when their form or 

 genus could also be said to be generally distributed over the whole world. 



1. As to America, and more especially South America. 



The first I shall particularly notice is Galerita — an American genus comprising 

 upwards of forty species, of which nine-tenths are found in America, most of them in 

 the United States, some in California, some in the West Indies, others in Brazil, &c., and 

 so southward to Monte Video. The northern species have a red thorax and black or 

 dark-blue elytra. As we go southwards, species are found with the colour of the thorax 

 darker or black, and its shape narrower. In Caraccas and the West India Islands, 

 the species G. unicolor found there has a black, narrow thorax, with blue elytra ; and 

 G. Lacordairei, found at Monte Video, is whoUy black. I have four species of this genus 

 from Old Calabar, all black, and aU having the elongated thorax, &c., of the South- 

 American species ; one of these species is found also in Senegal. The American species 

 Galerita unicolor is contrasted with my Old-Calabar species Galerita femoralis in 

 PI. XLVII. figs. 1 and 1 a. There are only two Asiatic species ; so that the inference 



3 P 2 



