THE CHIEF COLEOPTEROUS EATTNyE. 



29 



which a communication between the arctic and antarctic hemi- 

 spheres was effected, and that the affinities of the Coleoptera of 

 Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia rather point to that being the 

 channel of communication so far as they were concerned. It may 

 probably have been the case that there was interrupted commu- 

 nication between Tristan d'Acunha and these antarctic islands, 

 which in their turn had interrupted communication between 

 Cape Horn, New Zealand, and Australia. 



Leaving this question for future solution, I shall now revert 

 to the European fauna, of which we have only touched on the 

 most western limit, and trace it eastward. I have already said 

 that the whole fauna from the Azores to Japan was one and the 

 same. No better proof of this can be given than a comparison 

 of the list of species from one end of the continent to the other. 

 We have no complete lists of the Coleoptera all over the country, 

 our lists of the east of Asia being comparatively imperfect, but they 

 are still sufficient to illustrate the identity I desire to point out. 

 We have a list of those found by Schrenck in Amourland 

 and Eastern Siberia, made up by Motschoulsky, and published in 

 Schrenck's ' Eeisen im Amurlande ' *. We have also some simi- 

 lar data regarding the Coleopterous fauna of South-east Siberia, 

 collected by Eadde in his explorations ; but this is very imperfect, 

 and relates more to genera than species. Motschoulsky' s list of 

 species found both in Amour and Eastern Siberia contains 810 

 species. The portion of these found in Eastern Siberia is not, 

 however, so applicable to my present comparison as the list of 

 species found in Amour, which extends to the extremest limit of 

 Asia. The number of species from it, enumerated in the list above 

 referred to, was 340 ; but a fuller list was published afterwards by 

 him f, which contained 564 species ; and I have made it the 

 basis of a Table, which will be found in the Appendix, from which 

 the range of the species composing it can be ascertained. As it 

 does not forward this inquiry to know what particular species 

 are limited to Amour, I have left out all in that position, except 

 when they represent a genus not otherwise present, when I give 



* I may here say, parenthentically, that Count Motschoulsky' s tendency was 

 certainly not to diminish the number of new species, but rather to increase 

 them, so that any insect that he admitted to be the same as one previously de- 

 scribed may, without much doubt, be accepted as really such. 



t 'Catalogue des Insectes rapportes des environs du Fl. Amour, depuis 

 la Schitka jusqu'a Nikolaevsk, examines et enumeres par V. Motschoulsky,' 

 Moscow, 1860. 



