GEOMETRIDAE. 



153 



South America there is as yet no list, but here also the present subfamily cer- 

 tainly furnishes a very high percentage of the whole. 



As regards tropical Africa also there is no list ; for South Africa Janse 

 (Check-List, 1917) gives 267 Geometrinae out of 590 Geometrid species, namely 

 between 44 and 45 per cent. 



In British India Hampson (Faun. Brit. Ind., Moths, hi, 1895) recognised 

 1,063 species * of the family, 480 of them (45 per cent.) being Boarmiid. 

 In the wonderful collection made by Capt. A. E. Swann in the Kachin Hills, 

 Upper Burma (cf. Joum. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc, xxxi, 129-46, 309-22, 780-99, 

 932-50, 1926-27), the Boarmiids actually preponderated, numbering 175 species 

 •out of 329 (53 per cent.) ; and this notwithstanding the fact that Captain Swann 

 paid particular attention to the small species. 



The Malayan Subregion, when figures are available, may yield results 

 similar to those furnished by the Indian ; in working out the Geometrids of 

 Dr. E. Mjoberg's valuable collections from some of the Mountains of Sarawak 

 (Sar. Mus. Joum., iii, Pt. II, No. 9, pp. 169-210, 1926) I found the 124 species 

 to comprise 58 Geometrinae, or nearly 47 per cent. 



In Australia, out of about 950 described Geometridae, j" some 300 are 

 " Boarmiinae," just the same percentage as in Staudinger's Palaearctic Region. 

 As regards New Zealand, Mr. Meyrick (Tr. N. Z. Inst., xlix, 266, 1917) 

 has already remarked on the very inadequate representation of the subfamily ; 

 Tillyard shows the figure to be 44 out of a total of 237 Geometrids, or not quite 

 20 per cent. 



For New Guinea, the only papers yet published that can provide any basis 

 for statistical calculations are three by Warren (Nov. Zool., x, 343-414, 1903 ; 

 xiii, 61-161, 1906 ; xiv, 97-186, 1907), describing the new species contained in 

 some wonderfully rich collections made by Meek in the Owen Stanley Range. 

 Although these papers do not enumerate the previously known species of which 

 specimens were obtained, the proportion of novelties was so high that I believe 



* Hampson's wholesale " lumpings " probably do not appreciably modify percentages, 

 since they are impartially distributed between the subfamilies ; their influence, if any, will tell in 

 favour of this author's Boarmianae. The most glaring examples that occur to me are his 

 Boarmia acaciaria and Abraxas sylvata (" Boarmianae "), and his Sauris hirudinata (" Laren- 

 tianae "). 



t Tillyard's recent census (Ins. Austral, and N. Z., pp. 449-452, Nov. 1926) yields a total 

 of 916, but this is not quite complete, since Dr. Turner's works on which it is based, admittedly 

 exclude a number of species which he has been unable personally to examine. 



