72 



PARA 



feet, which have broad spongy soles and toothed claws 

 enabling them to climb over and cling to branches and 

 leaves. The remarkable scarcity of ground beetles is, 

 doubtless, attributable to the number of ants and Ter- 

 mites which people every inch of surface in all shady 

 places, and which would most Ukely destroy the larvae 

 of Coleoptera. These active creatures have the same 

 functions as Coleoptera, and thus render their existence 

 unnecessary. The large proportion of climbing forms of 

 carnivorous beetles is an interesting fact, because it affords 

 another instance of the arboreal character which animal 

 forms tend to assume in equinoctial America, a circum- 

 stance which points to the slow adaptation of the Fauna 

 to a forest-clad country throughout an immense lapse 

 of geological time. 



The large collections which I made of the animal pro- 

 ductions of Para, especially of insects, enabled me to 

 arrive at some conclusions regarding the relations of the 

 Fauna of the south side of the Amazons Delta to those 

 of neighbouring regions. It is generally allowed that 

 Guiana and Brazil, to the north and south of the Para 

 district, form two distinct provinces, as regards their 

 animal and vegetable inhabitants. By this it is meant 

 that the two regions have a very large number of forms 

 peculiar to themselves, and which are supposed not to 

 have been derived from other quarters during modern 

 geological times. Each may be considered as a centre 

 of distribution in the latest process of dissemination of 

 species over the surface of tropical America. Para lies 

 midway between the two centres, each of which has a 

 nucleus of elevated table-land, whilst the intermediate 

 river-valley forms a wide extent of low-lying country. 

 It is, therefore, interesting to ascertain from which the 

 latter received its population, or whether it contains so 

 large a number of endemic species as would warrant the 

 conclusion that it is itself an independent province. To 

 assist in deciding such questions as these, we must com- 

 pare closely the species found in the district with those 

 of the other contiguous regions, and endeavour to as- 

 certain whether they are identical, or only slightly modi- 

 fied, or whether they are highly peculiar. 



Von Martins, when he visited this part of Brazil forty 

 years ago, coming from the south, was much struck with 



