GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 495 
as heat to its general atmosphere; so that it well merits 
the poet’s epithet, Leonum arida nutrix ; and is also pe- 
culiarly fitted for all such animals, especially insects, as 
delight in a dry, sandy, hot country, particularly such as 
are predaceous in their habits. America, on the other 
hand, exhibits quite an opposite character. It is long, 
and comparatively narrow; surrounded, and almost di- 
vided into two continents, by immense circumfluent 
oceans; watered every where by rivers and lakes that 
emulate seas: in some parts covered by interminable 
forests; in others, intersected by ridges of the loftiest 
mountains. These circumstances, except in its Llanos or 
table-land, give a general character of humidity to its at- 
mosphere, and fit it particularly for the production of a 
vast variety of peculiar plants, and for the residence of 
numerous and peculiar phytiphagous insects and other 
animals?. Midway between these two continents lies a 
third (for so the vast island of New Holland may be 
denominated), which presents new features in its ge- 
neral aspect, and consequently new forms both in its 
Flora and Fauna, mixed with many old ones parallel to 
those both of the new world and the old. Perhaps Ku- 
rope and Asia, with several that are peculiar, agree more 
in their animal productions than the continents just de- 
scribed. 
Let us next particularize a few of the peculiar types 
that distinguish particular continents and countries. The 
genera Manticora, Graphipterus, Glaphyrus, Eurychora, 
Pneumora, Masaris, and many others, are peculiar to 
Africa. In Asia alone we find Mimela>, Euchlora M‘L.°, 
2 Latr. Géograph, &e. 18—. > Linn. Trans. xiv. ti. fi 4. 
¢ Hor. Entom. 147, 
