ECOLOGY OF ISLE ROYALE. 175 



the modifications, either in distribution or in structure, which have subsequently 

 occurred. 



'■1 have on an other occasion* expressed my belief that the study of the 

 distribution of existing Insects could give much information concerning former 

 'topographical and geographical changes in the surface of the earth. I then 

 gave several examples to show how the distribution of species peculiar in their 

 habits and structure confirmed what was already known by geological investiga- 

 tion of the gradual evolution of the middle part of the continent. I will now 

 advance the additional thesis, that we may obtain somewtiat definite informa- 

 tion of the sequence, extent, and effects of geological changes in the more recent 

 periods by a careful study of the insect fauna in its totality." 



1878a, pp. 470-471. Includes lists of Florida Coleoptera: 



1. Florida species also found in the Antilles. 



2. Common to Florida and Mexico and partly found in Texas. 



3. Common to Texas, Arizona, and southern California. 



4. Anomalous common to Florida, and South America. 



5. Distribution of anomalous species. 



Murray, A. 1870. pp. 7, 8, 11-12, 32-33, 36-37, 38, "The position I am about 

 to maintain then is, that, subject to modifications to be afterwards mentioned, all 

 the Coleoptera in the world are referable to one or other of three great stirpes. 

 These three no doubt originally sprung from one stirps, and acquired their dis- 

 tinguishing features by long-continued isolation from each other, combined with 

 changes in their conditions of life. But now we have three, and only three, 

 great strains, sometimes intermingling with each other, sometimes underlying 

 or overlying each other, and sometimes developed into new forms, but always dis- 

 tinguishable and traceable to one or other of the three sources. 



"These are — 1, the Indo- African stirps; 2, the Brazilian stirps; and 3, what, 

 for want of a better name, I shall call the microtypal stirps, in allusion to the 

 general run of the species composing it being of a smaller size, or, more strictly 

 speaking, not containing such large or conspicuous insects as the others. , It is 

 not altogether a satisfactory name, because the stirps does contain some large 

 species, and it is not peculiar to it to abound in small ones. But, taken as a 

 whole, its ingredients are smaller and more modest in appearance than those 

 of the others. The fauna and fiora of our own land may be taken as its type and 

 standard, pp. 7-8. 



"The Indo-African stirps, as its name implies, inhabits Africa south of the 

 Sahara, and India and China south of the Himalayas, also the Malayan district, 

 the Indian archipelago, and the New Guinea group. This range is less modified 

 by the general introduction of foreign elements than that of the next stirps. 



"The Brazilian stirps inhabits South Central America east of the Andes, and 

 north of the River Platte, and furnishes, moreover, a large share in the consti- 

 tution of North America, but has also received in return a very perceptible tinge 

 from the microtypal stirps. 



In the microtypal stirps I include the fauna of Europe, Asia north of the 

 Himalayas, Eastern North America, so far as not modified by the Brazilian element, 

 and, what has less of this strain, the whole of North-west America, California, 

 part of the Mexican fauna, Peru, Chili, the Argentine Republic south of Tucuman, 

 Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Polynesia, New Zealand, and Australia, p. 8. 



"Let us now turn to the three great stirps, and pass each of them in review, 

 trace their course, and determine their limits. I shall begin with the micro'- 

 typal stirps (with which we are most familiar). It is the most extensive of the 

 whole, being distributed over the whole world with the exception of the In- 

 dian, African, and Brazilian regions; and even they, from various exceptional 

 causes, have a greater or less tinge of it in their faunas. It contains some 

 minor faunas, and these, again, a number of subfaunas. The Europeo-Asiatlc 

 region is one of these minor faunas, and of it the Atlantic islands, the 

 Mediterranean, and the Monoglian are subfaunas. Taken as one fauna, 

 the Europeo-Asiatic extends from the Azores east to Japan, the whole 

 of that vast space being inhabited entirely by the same type and, for the most 

 part, by the same species, a few only dropping of£ here and there, and being re- 

 placed by others of the same general character, p. 11. 



1. Trans. Am. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1875, Detroit, President's address. Icf. Le Conte, '76.] 



