CHAP. XXXIX.] OF THE PAPUAN ISLANDS. 437 



elegant long-horned Anthribidse have spread in the opposite 

 direction from Malacca to New Guinea, but owing to un- 

 favourable conditions have not been able to establish 

 themselves in Australia. That country, on the other hand, 

 has developed a variety of flower-haunting Chafers and 

 Buprestidse, and numbers of large and curious terrestrial 

 Weevils, scarcely any of which are adapted to the damp 

 gloomy forests of New Guinea, where entirely different 

 forms are to be found. There are, however, some groups of 

 insects, constituting what appear to be the remains of the 

 ancient population of the equatorial parts of the Australian 

 region, which are still almost entirely confined to it. Such 

 are the interesting sub-family of Longicorn coleoptera — 

 Tmesisternitae ; one of the best-marked genera of Eupres- 

 tidse — Cyphogastra ; and the beautiful weevils forming the 

 genus Eupholus. Among butterflies we have the genera 

 Mynes, Hypocista, and Elodina, and the curious eye- 

 spotted Drusilla, of which last a single species is found in 

 Java, but in no other of the western islands. 



The facilities for the distribution of plants are still 

 greater than they are for insects, and it is the opinion of 

 eminent botanists, that no such clearly-defined regions can 

 be marked out in botany as in zoology. The causes which 

 tend to diffusion are here most powerful, and have led to 

 such intermingling of the floras of adjacent regions that 

 none but broad and general divisions can now be detected. 



