On new Species of Coleoptera from Japan. 459 LIII. — On certain new Species of Coleoptera from Japan. By George Lewis. While recently compiling a catalogue of Japanese Coleoptera, I found in my cabinets a few new species, some of which are of more than ordinary interest ; and I have therefore drawn out the following diagnoses with the object of clearing off old material before starting again to the East. As many authors have shown, the fauna of Nipon consists chiefly of species derived from the same source as those of Northern Asia and Europe ; but it is in part made up also of genera from the tropics, together with a few from the New World. There is more connexion between the fauna of the south of Japan and the Philippine Islands and Borneo than with South China, so far as the researches of entomologists at present lead us ; and this is illustrated in the well-marked genera Nodynus, Xuthia, Ichthyurus, Ischalia, and Prionocerus, noted here. And this is not surprising; for from South Japan, through to Formosa and thus on to Luzon, there is a series of small con-necting islands not far distant from each other. The Necydalis described below is of American type ; and it is well to observe that the line of communication afforded by the Aleutian and Kurile Isles brings into Japan just such links from America as we might expect from a broken line of islands. Formerly, perhaps, this line was less interrupted or even complete ; but if so, it would appear from the paucity of analogous genera to have been connected only prior to the lifetime of existing races. There is one instance, worth re-cording, of an insect crossing the Pacific by this route ; it is the ever-varying Corymbites lateralis, Leconte, the home of which is, I believe, Vancouver's Island. Then in the genus Penthe, the Japanese is allied to the American, not to the Javan species \ and in the new genus of Necrophaga lately established by Dr. Kraatz, Ptomascopus, there are two species described from Japan and one from China ; yet the second Japanese species is allied to an Amazon insect rather than to either of its fellows in Asia. These instances, which are, however, the exception and not the rule, could be extended considerably did space allow ; but the general result would be left unchanged. It will be an interesting day for those who study the Eastern-Asiatic fauna when a good collection comes from Korea or Saghalien. Tachycellus subditus, n. sp. T. elongatus, subovatus, niger, nitidus ; thorace distincte marginato,
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