Tenebrionidae und Curculionidae. 
By 
Dr. L. Peringuey 
Director of the South African Museum, Cape Town. 
Had I not known the "itineraire" of the several journeys of Dr. L. Schultze, it would have been 
easy for me to trace it to his satisfaction merely through the examination of his captures of the Coleoptera 
belonging to the Family Tenebrionidae and Curculionidae. I would in the case of the former have 
arrived to my conclusions not so much through the specific as through the generic differences. In the 
latter I would have relied on the specific instead of the generic differences. 
A glance at the map of Southern Africa showing the Vegetation explains without difficulty the 
presence or absence in large or small numbers of individuals or of species in so far as insects, herbivorous 
or carnivorous, are concerned. And as insects depend on Vegetation, Vegetation itself being of course 
dependent on the physical relief and geology of the country, it follows that the insects must have proven 
plastic enough to accomodate themselves to these conditions, and acquired either a facies or obtained habits 
suited to their environments. 
Let us cursorily examine the distribution of the Vegetation of the country. From the mouth of the 
Orange River at about the 27 ° of latitude E. of Greewich, following the bend and sinuosities of that river 
to near Jacobsdal in the Orange River Colony, 25 lat. E., produced thence obliquely to below Aliwal North 
in the Cape Colony, about 31°, continued southward to 34 .3O, and running westward in an undulating line 
as far as the sea coast at about 32 .3O lat., and continued northward along the sea board to the mouth of 
the Orange River there spreads what is known in South Africa as the Karroo Vegetation area. 
It is there that most of the endemic forms of Coleoptera *) occur, although south of that line and 
reaching the coast, many of these forms specific as well generic are also found. 
This Karroo area is usually barren, and receives little rain except in summer. It is not however 
uniform. There is Karroo- and Grass-Veld in little Namaqualand, and still more of it to the northern and 
eastern parts, while large patches of sandy and stony desert are interspersed in the northwestern part. North 
of the Orange River is the true Grass-Veld interspersed with patches of Thorn-bush, and large tracts of 
sandy and stony desert. 
1) Although I am only treating here of two families of Coleoptera the distinction I indicate is also borne out in 
other families, but it will be easily unterstood that I cannot in this article enlarge upon so wide a field. 
