1961] 
Darlington — Australian Carabid Beetles 
7 
Melbourne and some of the southern “Victorian Alps” east of Mel- 
bourne. This kind of forest occurs also, at wide intervals, on isolated 
plateaus in eastern New South Wales, notably on the plateau of the 
Mt. Royal Range (Barrington Tops and Tomalla Tops) at about 
31 0 50' S. and on the higher part of the Dorrigo-Ebor Plateau 
(especially at Point Lookout in New England National Park) at 
about 30° S. Both these plateaus reach about 5000 ft. above sea level. 
The northernmost Nothofagus in Australia is still farther north, on 
the southern border of Queensland, where small tracts of old trees 
exist on the highest points of the McPherson Range, at about 28° 20' 
S. and 4,000 ft. altitude. Nothofagus does not occur on the mountains 
of tropical North Queensland but is dominant in New Guinea in 
mountain forests between about 6,500 and 10,000 ft. (Womersley 
and McAdam 1957, p. 25). However, south temperate groups of 
Carabidae do not occur in the New Guinean Nothofagus forests. 
The distribution of tropical (including subtropical) and south 
temperate rain forest is shown, rather diagramatically, on the accom- 
panying map (Fig. 6). The map is based partly on the vegetation 
map in “The Australian Environment” (CSIRO 1950, pp. 88-89) 
and on Brass’s (1953, p. 152) map of Cape York rain forests, but 
many details are modified according to my own observations. In most 
cases rain forest is not continuous within the boundaries shown, but 
occurs as irregular, sometimes discontinuous tracts and strips inter- 
spersed with savannah woodland (in the north) and/or sclerophyll 
forest (in the south). The two kinds of rain forest overlap widely in 
New South Wales. Within the area of overlap south temperate rain 
forest is usually above (at higher altitude than) tropical rain forest, 
but there is some mixing. 
The Carabidae 
The wet-forest Carabidae of New Guinea and Australia, including 
Tasmania, are numerous, diverse, and complex in ecology and distri- 
bution. They form three general ecological groups. Those that live on 
the ground without being specially associated with surface water are 
mesophiles or geophiles. Those that live on the ground beside streams 
or ponds or in swamps are hydrophiles. And those that live on tree 
trunks or in foliage above the ground are arboreal. According to my 
(i943, P- 41 ) rough analysis of the Australian carabid fauna, at least 
half the species are geophiles, not quite a quarter hydrophiles, and not 
quite a quarter arboreal. The carabid fauna of New Guinea divides 
in something like the same way, although I cannot yet give exact 
figures. 
