THE CHIEF COLEOPTEEOUS EAUNiE. 31 



The same fauna goes southwards through. Mantchouria and 

 Korea into China ; and about Shanghai we get to the line where 

 it meets the Indo-Malayan fauna. 



We have a tolerably fair (although far from complete) notion 

 of the Coleopterous fauna of that part of China. Mr. J. C. 

 Bowring procured important material from that quarter. Mr. W. 

 W. Saunders has also made some of its species known ; atjd latterly 

 Mr. C. W. Goodwin, Assistant Judge of the Consular Court of 

 Shanghai, has sent some important collections made in the im- 

 mediate vicinity of that city to one of our London entomologists, 

 M. de Rivas, who, I trust, will ere long give to entomologists 

 a catalogue of the species. In the meantime these materials 

 (which I have had the advantage of studying) show that the 

 Coleopterous fauna of Shanghai is a mixture of a few Indo- 

 Malayan types (such as Gopris molossus, Euchlora viridis, Cero- 

 sterna punctata variety) with a mass of smaller species mainly 

 belonging to the Europeo- Asiatic fauna; some identical with 

 European species, the majority new species of the same typo. A 

 small collection of Coleoptera made by Dr. Collingwood at For- 

 mosa, which lie lias been kind enough to sliow mo, exhibits the 

 same mixed fauna, and of nearly the same kind and proportions. 



An exactly similar intermixture occurs on the opposite coast 

 of Japan ; but what is most remarkable is, that although it occurs 

 in the Beetles, Butterflies, Bugs, &c., it does not occur in the 

 Hymenoptera. The great majority of the Beetles are of the 

 Europeo-Asiatic type, and a certain proportion (as in Amour) 

 are identical with, or only very slightly different from British 

 species ; the minority consists of species of the Indo-Malayan 

 type, and indeed of the identical species which occur at Shanghai 

 (Copris molossus and a variety of Cerosterna punctata, being two 

 of the most prominent insects in both). But the Hymenopterous 

 fauna is not of this mixed character ; it is entirely Chinese. 

 Mr. Frederick Smith, our first authority on the Hymenoptera, 

 and who, from his position in the British Museum, has unusual 

 opportunities of observing collections from all quarters, tells me 

 that he has never seen a Hymenopterous insect from Japan of 

 other than the Chinese type. It is the only class of insect, so fiar 

 as I know, in which this deviation from the typical character ob- 

 served in others occurs. "Why should this be ? Is there any 

 peculiarity in the life of the Hymenoptera which can account for 

 it ? The only one I know of is, that one large section of them 



