Address of John L. LeConte. 245 
winged, the Pacific one, like a large number of insects of that 
region, are without wi nee. 
ccompanying these are Coleoptera of other families, which 
have been less acetals ‘ctadiod but I will not trespass upon 
our patience by mentioning more than two. Bledius pallipen- 
nis (Staphylinide) is found on salt marshes near New York, on 
the Southern sea-coast and in Kansas—Ammodonus ‘fossor, a 
wingless Tenebrionide, Trenton, sea-shore near New York, and 
Valley of the Mississippi at St. Louis; thus nearly approxi- 
mating Cicindela lepida in distribution. 
e can thus obtain by a careful observation ~ the erage 
of insects, especially such as affect sea-shore or marsh, a 
those which being deprived of their favorite p AHR ware 
shown, if | may so express myself, a patriotic clinging to their 
native ‘soil, most valuable indications in regard to the time at 
which their unmodified ancestors first appeared upon the earth. 
For it is obvious that no tendency to change in different direc- 
tions by ‘‘ numerous successive slight modifications ”* wou 
produce a uniform result in such distant localities, and under 
such varied conditions of life. Properly studied, these indica- 
tions are quite as certain as though we found the well preserved 
remains of these ancestors in the mud and sand strata upon 
which they flitted or dug in quest of foo 
Other illustrations of survivals from indefinitely more sestagete: 
times I will give you, from the Coleopterous fauna o 
canned though passing time admonishes me to oak their 
num 
To make my remarks intelligible, I must begin by saying 
that ra are three great divisions of Coleoptera, which I will 
name in the order of their complication 4 atnenee plan: 
1. Rhynchophora; 2. Heteromera; 3. nary or normal 
Coleoptera; the last two being more ‘nearly chia to each other 
than either is to the first. I have in other places exposed the 
riers of these divisions, and will not detain you by repeat- 
ing t 
ious paleontological evidence derived from other branches 
of zoology we have a right to suppose, if this classification be 
correct, that these great types have been “sass upon the 
earth in the order in which I have named t 
Now, it is precisely in the first one asd series that the 
most anomalous instances of geographical distribution occur; 
that is to say, the same or nearly i estival genera are repre- 
sen Yy species in very widely sep: regions, without 
* Origin of Sis 1869, 227. 
