Natural-History Collectors. 6411 



and black marked, also scarce : T. labiata and Tricondyla aptera are 

 the same as sent from Am. I have never before found so many 

 species of Therates in one place : they form quite a feature in the 

 Entomology of Dorey. Carabidae were very scarce : I picked up, 

 however, some pretty things, especially two most brilliant Catascopi, 

 but both unique. For a long time I took no Staphylinidae : at last I 

 found a station for them, and by working it assiduously I got between 

 eighty or ninety species : some are the handsomest of the group I 

 have yet taken, and there are many curious and interesting forms. 

 Talk about Brachelytra being rare in the tropics ! of their place being 

 supplied by ants, &c, &c. ! why, they are absolutely far more abundant 

 in the tropics than anywhere else, and I believe also more abundant 

 in proportion to the other families. I see in the ? Zoologist ' two local 

 lists of Coleoptera (Dublin and Alverstoke), in which the numbers of 

 Staphylini are 103 and 106 species respectively ; these are the results 

 of many years collecting by several persons, and in a country where 

 all the haunts and habits of the tribe are known ; here, in two localities 

 (Macassar and Dorey), I have taken at each nearly the same number 

 of species, in three months' collecting, on a chance discovery of one or 

 two stations for them, and while fully occupied with extensive collections 

 of all orders of insects, in a country where every other one is new. 

 The fair inference is, that in either of these localities Staphylini are 

 really ten times as numerous as in England ; and there is reason to 

 believe that any place in the tropics will give the same results, since 

 in the little rocky island of Hong-Kong Mr. Bowring has found nearly 

 100 species ; yet Dr. Horsfield, who is said to have collected assi- 

 duously in Java, did not get a solitary species. My next richest and 

 most interesting group is that of the Cleridae, of which I have about 

 fifty species, perhaps more, for they are very puzzling : I have never 

 got so many in one locality, nor should I now had I not carefully set 

 them out and studied their specific characters, and thus separated many 

 which would otherwise certainly have escaped notice. In another 

 small and obscure group, the Bostrichidae and allied Scolytidae, I 

 obtained no fewer than thirty-eight species, whilst the Lampyridae and 

 allied groups were in endless and most puzzling variety. 1 have also 

 got an exceedingly rich and interesting series of Galerucidae and Chry- 

 somelidae. The Elaters are small and little interesting. The Buprestida3 

 also are very inferior, and of the only fine species [Chrysodema Lotinii) 

 I could only obtain a single pair. With so many minute Coleoptera 

 I could not give much attention to the other orders ; there are, how- 

 ever, some singular Orthoptera, and among the Diptera a most extra- 



