THE CUIKF COLEOPTEROUS FAUNAE. 



37 



Eleodes, its perfect counterpart and representative; and it is to 

 be observed that while the facies of the species actually inhabit- 

 ing California is entirely that of Blaps, a number of species 

 which are found in Kansas and on the eastern flanks of the 

 ^ Rocky Mountains have a somewhat different facies ; and I 

 should add that the supposition that these are stragglers from 

 the Californian shores is strengthened by the fact that the 

 genus does not occur to the east of the Missouri : other Hete- 

 romerous forms, reminding us of Mediterranean and Asiatic 

 species, occur in California, and the whole of the north-west of 

 America has a greater preponderance of the microtypal stirps than 

 perhaps occurs east of the Rocky Mouutains. The Brazilian ele- 

 ment is less sensibly present, such Brazilian genera as JPassalus, 

 Dynastes, Monocrepidius, Macrodactylus, Dichelonycha, Phanceus, 

 Gymnetis, &c. being absent in California, although present in 

 the Eastern States. M. Candeze, in his work on the Elateridre, 

 notices that Meristlius scrobinula is found both iu Mexico and 

 China, and adds that he has found other species common to 

 these countries, notwithstanding their distance from each other 

 (Candeze, ' Elateridae,' i. 165). Other facts in other branches of 

 natural history lend strength to the idea of a former communica- 

 tion having existed between Asia and California. For example, 

 in Mammals, there is a peculiar genus of Moles, Urotrichus, 

 which has not been met with anywhere but in Japan and Cali- 

 fornia. In plants, the botanist will remember that the Co- 

 niferous subgenus Pseudostrobus, so abundant in Mexico and 

 Califoruia, in the Old World reappears in Japan, and only there. 

 The Menzies and Douglas type of Spruces does the same, species 

 almost identical with them occurring in Japan. The Chamcecy- 

 parts of California is only another name for the Retinospora of 

 Japan ; and among herbaceous plants simdar relations can be 

 pointed out. In the Sandwich Islands, again (so far as we know, 

 which is not so much as we wish), which from their position 

 may probably have been part of any northern land which for- 

 merly existed in the Pacific, as well as, at some period antecedent 

 or subsequent, a part of Polynesia, the same character of fauna is 

 present. Among the Lepidoptera we have Sphinx cingnlata, Linn., 

 or what is scarcely distinguishable from it, it in its turn being the 

 scarcely distinguishable American representative of our own British 

 Sphinx convolvuli. The only Coleopterous genera which I know 

 from them are Anchomenus, Colymbetes, Agabus, Hydrobius, Kete- 



