CHAP, XXI.] 
INSECTS. 
487 
PalEearctic has 2, but none peculiar; the Ethiopian 13, with 11 
peculiar ; the Oriental 8, with 3 peculiar ; the Australian 9, with 
2 peculiar; and the Neotropical 15, with 10 peculiar. The 
connection between South America and Australia is shown by 
the latter country possessing 9 species of the characteristic 
South American genus Tetracha, as well as one of Megaeephala. 
The small number of peculiar genera in the Oriental and Aus- 
tralian regions is partly owing to the circumstance that tw T o 
otherwise peculiar Oriental genera have spread eastward to the 
Moluccas and New Guinea, a fact to be easily explained by the 
great facilities such creatures have for passing narrow straits, and 
by the almost identical physical conditions in the Malayan portion 
of the two regions. The insects of Indo-Malava were better 
adapted to live in the Austro-Malay Islands than those of 
Australia itself, and the latter group of islands have thus ac- 
quired an Oriental aspect in their entomology, though not with- 
out indications of the presence of an aboriginal insect-fauna of a 
strictly Australian type. The relation of the Australian and 
Neotropical regions is exhibited by this family in an unusually 
distinct manner. Tetracha , a genus which ranges from Mexico 
to La Plata, has 9 species in Australia ; while Megacephala has 
2 American and 1 Australian species. Another curious, and 
more obscure relation, is that between the faunas of Tropical 
America and Tropical Africa. This is also illustrated by the 
genus Megacephala , which has 4 African species as well as 2 
South American ; and we have also the gentis Peridexia , which 
has 2 species in South America and 2 in Madagascar. 
Several of the sub-regions are also well characterised by pecu- 
liar genera ; as Amblychila and Omus confined to California and 
the Rocky Mountains ; Manticora, Ophryodera, Platy chile and 
Promica, characteristic of South Africa; Megalomma and Pogonos- 
toma peculiar to the Mascarene Islands ; and Caledonica to the 
islands east of New Guinea. The extensive and elegant genus 
Collyris is highly characteristic of the Oriental region, over the 
whole of which it extends, only just passing the limits into 
Celebes and Timor. 
The Cicindelidse, therefore, fully conform to those divisions of 
