404 T'ransactions.—Zoology. 
if we exclude such ** mierotypal" forms as are common more or less to all 
temperate countries. Such well-marked genera as Distypsidera, Promeco- 
derus, Calonota, Cilibe, Rhadinosomus, Psepholae, Mitrastethus, Didymocantha, 
Phlyctenodes, and others are common to both and are not known elsewhere ; 
while genera found in Australia have in New Zealand comparatively 
numerous others closely allied. On the other hand, however, there is a 
singular absence, or only an exceedingly limited number, of large and 
characteristic Australian genera, and even of whole families having 
numerous exponents in Australia—as, for example, the Buprestide, with 
over 800 representatives in Australia, but only with one, and that very 
doubtful, in New Zealand; the Scarabiede, with 11 New Zealand species 
(no Cetoniing ) has about 450 in Australia; the great group of Phytophaga, 
abundant almost everywhere, and some of them great pests to the agricul- 
turist, with more than 200 Australian species, has only three or four in 
New Zealand, and those belonging to three microtypal genera. Of the 
entomology of the numerous islands north and north-east of New Zealand 
we know very little, except that it includes some isolated forms. (2) That 
out of about, in round numbers, 180 genera of Coleoptera, about 50 are 
peculiar to New Zealand, and about 50 are either almost cosmopolitan or 
also found in middle Europe [mostly British] ; the remainder have repre- 
sentatives in Australia, the Malayan archipelago, Japan, Madagascar, North 
and South America, Africa, ete., but not in Europe. In the other orders 
of insects European forms are mostly represented. No one genus, I believe, 
is peculiar to New Zealand, except amongst the Lepidoptera.* From these 
considerations, I think that the New Zealand fauna (for insects at least) 
cannot be regarded as belonging to the primary Australian region, but that 
it is a secondary or “ satellite " region, having too many endemic forms and 
too many representatives (out of all proportion to the rest) of widely distri- 
buted genera, and yet subsidiary to a certain extent to the Australian, 
inasmuch as it approaches it in a very marked manner in possessing several 
peculiar forms, as we have already stated. 1 
* Mr. Butler, in the recently completed * Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. * Erebus’ 
and * Terror'" [Janson], enumerates 318 species of Lepidoptera. A few genera, for the 
present at least, may be assumed to be peculiar. 
Mr. Murray, in his paper “ On the Geographical Relations of the chief Coleopterous 
Faunz" (Journ. Linn. Soc.,” XL, pp. 1 et seq.), seeks to establish three great “stirpes” 
to which all the Coleoptera in the world are referable, viz., I., the Indo-African ; II., the 
Brazilian; and II., the **mierotypal." To the first of these, inter alia, belongs the New 
Guinea group, and to the last Australia and New Zealand, including also the temperate 
regions of the globe as well as tropical Peru. While I agree with Mr. Murray in regarding 
the beetle-fauna of New Guinea as totally different in character from that of Australia, I 
look upon the latter as being peculiarly distinct and isolated. If we knew anything of 
the entomology of the southern part of New Guinea and more of the district of Cape York 
the gap which now exists might be somewhat lessened. 
