1880.1 
159 
ON TIIE DISTEIBUTION OF DAM ASTER, WITH DESCRIPTION OF A 
NEW SPECIES. 
BY GEORGE LEWIS. 
For the study of certain forms of Coleoptera which are limited in 
their distribution, the fauna of Japan is convenient, inasmuch as the 
country covers over fourteen degrees of latitude, and the greatest 
bieadth of unbroken land is barely five degrees in the widest part, 
fihe Archipelago is cut up into sections by dividing seas and straits : 
in the north by the Tsugar Strait, in the south by the incursions of 
the inland sea, while the main island in latitude 35° is geographically 
much broken up by the Owari Bay, Biwa Lake, and Wakasa Bay, and 
over this last line many of the southern species do not pass. Let us 
consider the position which Damaster — an endemic form of Carabus — 
takes in a country thus topographically divided, and see how changes 
of climate modify varieties and create species. In Kushiu, the 
southern part, we find a large black species of nocturnal habits 
measuring 29 lines ; a species of such vigorous and substantial habit 
that we almost instinctively look on it as the father of every Damaster. 
The forests it inhabits are those with summers of sub-tropical heat 
and length, ushered in by heavy rains, with little thermal change day 
or night. The trees there attain considerable height and girth, and 
through many groves the sun scarcely penetrates. A few miles north- 
ward of this district, near the well-known volcano of Simabara— the 
summit of which is sometimes in mid-winter capped with snow — the 
valleys are composed of decaying lava, and on such a soil the trees are 
of more moderate growth, and easily penetrated by the cold winds of 
the higher altitudes. Here, although only a few miles from Nagasaki, 
are great climatic changes, and we find D. Lewisi , a half-starved form, 
so to speak, of D. blaptoides. We then pass considerably more to the 
eastward, but only 1£ degrees north, to Hiogo. Again we find the 
soil, climate, and vegetation correspond with Simabara, and the same 
species of Damaster. Crossing the Biwa-lake-barrier into the Yoko- 
hama district we come to quite a different form of insect, and we need 
not look far for reasons of change : we find D. pandurus , a clumsily- 
formed species, in which much of the elegance of the outline in the 
genus is lost, and the elytral mucrones almost obsolete, and with these 
changes colour first appears. The winters of Yokohama are com- 
paratively severe : snow not infrequent, and cold winds from adjacent 
snow-covered mountains continual, penetrating the forest lands, and 
the soil becomes ice-bound, sometimes for days together. On a 
