1961] 
Darlington — Australian Carabid Beetles 
21 
not been able to reach such slightly isolated places as the rain forest 
on the Elliot Range. The whole pattern, of occasional or limited 
exchange between North and South Queensland and of isolation of 
endemic faunules on the Elliot Range and in the Cape York rain 
forests, is consistent with climates and forests fluctuating only within 
moderate limits, not profoundly. 
Ecological Correlations 
It is a fact not sufficiently understood by some zoogeographers that 
the climatic zones, the differences between tropical and cool temperate 
climates, are very important to Carabidae and other insects. In 
eastern Australia, where climate is the only permanent barrier to dis- 
persal, many old groups of Carabidae are confined to either the tropical 
(including subtropical) or the cooler south temperate areas. Evident- 
ly whole tribes may persist for long periods in small areas protected 
only by climatic barriers, and even dominant tribes do not always 
easily cross from one climatic zone to another, 
Carabid distribution is correlated with climate and ecology in sev- 
eral more specific ways. For example some rain forest Carabidae, 
including five genera specially considered above, seem to be more strict- 
ly limited to rain forest in the tropics than in the south temperate zone. 
This suggests that ecological factors are more intense in the tropics, 
as they may well be if temperature and evaporation rates are involved. 
That ecological factors are intense in the tropics is suggested also by 
groups of Carabidae that occur in diverse habitats in the temperate 
zones but enter or cross the tropics only when associated with surface 
water, which probably tempers the intensity of tropical climate. I 
have discussed this elsewhere (1959, especially pp. 332, 342). In 
Australia, for example, the only Trechini that occur in the tropics 
are winged hydrophiles: Perileptus and Trechodes by running water 
and Trechobembix (which extends north to Cairns) in deep swamps. 
Mecyclothorax occurs in many habitats in temperate southern Aus- 
tralia, but I found only one species (apparently cordicollis SI.) in the 
tropics, in thick vegetation over deep, cool water on the Atherton 
Tableland. And Notagonum (“ Agonum ”) submetallicum (White), 
which, though always associated with water, occurs in a variety of 
waterside habitats in both humid and arid parts of south temperate 
Australia, I found in the tropics (Atherton Tableland) only in thick 
vegetation over cool, moving water. 
There is also a notable correlation of wings and flight of Carabi- 
dae with climate and altitude. Carabidae (mostly geophiles) often 
become flightless at low altitudes in temperate climates, and on moun- 
