CHAP. XXI.] 
INSECTS. 
495 
to Australia and South America. The Nearctic and Pakea retie 
regions have 3 genera in common, which are found in no other 
part of the world. 
Among the special features of interest connected with the 
distribution of this family, we must first notice the exceptional 
richness of Madagascar, which alone possesses 21 peculiar 
genera. South Africa is also very rich, having 8 peculiar 
genera. Stethodesma is very peculiar, being divided between 
South America and Mexico on the one hand, and West and 
South Africa on the other. Btalagmosoma is a desert genus, 
ranging from Persia to Dongola. No genus is cosmopolitan, or 
even makes any approach to being so, except Valgus , which 
occurs in all the regions except the Neotropical ; and even the 
family seems to be not universally distributed, since no species 
are recorded either from New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, or 
the Antilles. 
The facts here brought forward, lead us to the conclusion that 
the Cetoniidte are an Old-World tropical family, which had 
been well developed in Africa and Asia before it spread to 
Australia and America ; and that it is only capable of being 
freely dispersed in the warmer regions of the earth. This view 
will explain the absence of affinity between the Australian and 
Neotropical regions, the only closer connection between which, 
has almost certainly occurred in the colder portions of the Tem- 
perate zone. 
BTJPRESTIDiE, (109 Genera, 2,686 Species.) 
The next family suited to our purpose is that of the Bupres- 
tidifi, consisting as it does of many large and some gigantic 
species, generally adorned with brilliant metallic colours, and 
attracting attention in all warm countries. Although these in- 
sects attain, their full development of size and beauty only in 
the Tropics, they are not much less abundant in the warmer 
parts of the Temperate zone. In the Catalogue of the Coleop- 
tera of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin, by M. de Marseul 
(1863), we find 317 species of Buprestkke enumerated, although 
