2 
Psyche 
[March 
(Darlington, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Vol. 107, No. 3, 1952, 
pp. 89-252, pis.) against only about 20-odd species of 
Pterostichini (in material assembled for study but not 
yet formally studied) . 
One reason for the number of Agonini in New Guinea 
is that species of this tribe have multiplied on the moun- 
tains there, in forest at middle and high altitudes. Some 
of them occur even in the high grasslands above the 
forest line, at 11,000 feet or higher, where the climate is 
colder than it is in much of Australia. In Australia, how- 
ever, Pterostichini, not Agonini, have multiplied on the 
mountains. Why this should be so is not immediately 
apparent. The Australian mountains are lower, but this 
does not account for the difference. On the Atherton 
Tableland and elsewhere in tropical Queensland in north- 
eastern Australia, at altitudes of 2,000 or 3,000 feet, are 
big tracts of full-scale rainforest (called “scrub” in Aus- 
tralia) entirely comparable to the rainforests of New 
Guinea and containing some of the same species of trees. 
This kind of forest in New Guinea is inhabited by many 
Agonini and few Pterostichini; but in Australia, by few 
Agonini and many Pterostichini, most of the latter belong- 
ing to Australian genera which do not reach New Guinea 
at all. I have collected extensively in both the Australian 
and New Guinean rainforests, and I can testify from my 
own experience that the pterostichine-agonine faunas of 
the two places are unexpectedly and profoundly different 
— in spite of the fact that they share some identical 
species ! 
This difference can hardly be accounted for in simple 
ecological terms but is probably due to a complex combina- 
tion of ecological, historical, and geographical factors. 
Over the world as a whole, there is a tendency for Agonini 
to be better represented in the tropics; Pterostichini, in 
the temperate zones; although this zonal complementarity 
is not strongly defined. Also it is probable that the Agonini 
are more recent in origin than the Pterostichini and that 
they have dispersed more recently, although the dispersal 
of each group has been very complex, and although even 
the Agonini dispersed long enough ago to have reached all 
