CA.RABIDJE. 



57 



one such puncture. Exceptions appear to occur in the genera 

 Pterostichus and Amara, but the chief objection to the division is 

 the forced grouping together of discordant elements, and the 

 -separation of allied groups ; the Lebiinjs for instance are in the 

 former division and the Brachininjs is the second. Granglbauer 

 (Die Xafer von Mitteleuropa, i, pp. 30-32) gives a dichotomous 

 table of all the groups founded chiefly on the under skeleton, the 

 mouth parts, and the formation of the coxa) and tibia) ; but he 

 makes use of Horn's division for the latter part of his table, and 

 also indirectly of the divisions Truncatipennes and Intrtjxcati- 

 pejO"ES ; the former include the Brachinini, Masoreini, Dryptini, 

 Lebiini, and Odacanthint, which form part of the Harpalin^. 

 He further adopts the characters of the epimera and episterna 

 given above for the separation of the Carabinte and Harpalix.e, 

 but leaves out of consideration the characters drawn by Bates 

 (Biol. Cent.-Amer., Coleoptera, Vol. i), from the dilatation of the 

 joints and the clothing of their underside in the male, which in 

 many cases appear to be very valuable, although they break down 

 in one or two groups. 



Less than 500 Carabid^e are recorded from India in the 

 Catalogue of Gemminger and von Harold, Vol. i (18G8). Between 

 twice and three times this number are now known, and this is 

 probably only a small proportion of the species existing within 

 the limits of the region considered in this work. That this is the 

 case may be gathered from the " List of Carabid^e," by H. 

 "W. Bates (1892), in which he describes and notes the species 

 collected shortly before by Pea in Burma and the adjacent regions 

 in a comparatively short period. Signor Lea, who by no means 

 confined himself to this group or order, paid considerable attention 

 to the obscurer species, which have usually been so much neglected 

 in tropical countries, and his researches, coupled with those of 

 Mr. Champion in Central America, have revolutionised our ideas 

 with regard to the geographical distribution of living forms. In 

 a short time and over a small extent of country 207 new species 

 and 15 new genera were obtained by Lea. As Mr. Bates' article 

 is not easy of access and as it was his last work before his death, 

 it may be of service to Indian students to quote the concluding 

 portion of his preface : — " One or two obvious conclusions are 

 suggested by even a cursory glance at the present list. One is the 

 close relationship between the carabideous fauna of the Irawadi 

 Valley and that of Assam or the valley of the Brahmaputra, 

 showing that the mountainous region constituting the watershed 

 of the Irawadi is not high enough to serve as a barrier to the 

 migration of either terrestrial or arboreal species of the group, a 

 conclusion confirmed by the numerous cases in which the same 

 species inhabit the Naga and Khasia Hills. A close faunistic 

 relation exists also with the lower Gangetic Valley on the west 

 and the great river basins of the Indo-Chinese countries to the 

 east, as also with the lower valley of the Yangtsze-Kiang, 

 Eastern China and Japan. Another conclusion is the lack of any 



