306 The Insect Fauna of Van Biemen^s Land. 



The MelasomcB of New Holland are very diiferent front 

 those of South Africa : the greatest similarity is to be found 

 among the Curculionce. The genus Hipporlihms is common 

 to both continents, but superior in South Africa as to the 

 number of its species. The genus Amy dents, so rich in 

 species^ and so characteristic of New Holland, has one 

 South African analogue. Other forms common to both 

 South Africa and New Holland extend also over tropical 

 Africa and the East Indies. 



The Pauna of New Holland is allied to that of Madagascar 

 in some few instances ; viz. — in the Cetonia with a divided 

 clypeus, and also in the total absence of the Spanish Fly^ 

 Lytta, so generally distributed elsewhere. 



A slight affinity between New Holland and North 

 American forms is worthy of notice; — for example, the 

 analogy between Carenum and FasimacJms j also the genus 

 NotiopJiilus Schonh., of CurcuUona, of which Schonherr 

 mentions two North American specieSj to which I shall 

 now add one from Van Diemen's Land. 



We should misunderstand the character of the insect 

 Fauna of New Holland, were we to imagine that it produces 

 only forms peculiar to itself: on the contrary, many Euro- 

 pean forms occur here, no less than in vegetation. E-ob^ 

 Brown asserts his opinion, i^) that a great number of species 

 of plants do not owe their appearance in New Holland to 

 colonization, but are cotemporaneously indigenous to both 

 Europe and New Holland. This observation is not, in my 

 opinion, equally applicable to the insect world : with the ex- 

 ception of Colynibetespulveros^is, (f) and a few insects brought 

 hither from the Indian Archipelago, I know of no species 

 in New Holland that is not peculiar to the country, 



(*) A. o, a. o. 



(t) Compare volmue the fiftb of tliis ArcHre, 2ncl Part, p. 321. 



