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Show 192 DR. H. GADOW ON MEXICAN [June 6, tours through many States of Mexico. These, and others, I have been able to examine owing to the courtesy of the officials of the Field Columbia Museum, Chicago. Dr. Meek has, moreover, given me much verbal information about the physical aspects of the places visited by him. 5. There is a fair number of native specimens in the Governmental Museums and other Institutions of various towns in Mexico; for instance, in Mexico City, Orizaba, and Oaxaca, but the labels vouchsafe at best no further trustworthy information than " Mexico " or " La Republica." 6. Lastly, the material which I have collected myself, or noted down, during two journeys in Mexico, notably in the Valley of Mexico, the States of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Morelos, and Puebla, and in the neighbourhood of Zapotlan s. Guzman in Jalisco, especially the Nevado de Colima. The features of the Central and Northern plateau, except the vicinity of El Paso, I know only from several rapid transits, quite enough, however, to gather the main aspects of this enormous stretch of country. Moreover, here Dr. Meek's information has been especially welcome. Valuable for comparison, but of too short a time for serious collecting, wei'e a few days passed in New Mexico, the Grand Canon of Arizona, the Californian Desert, and the neighbourhood of San Francisco. A few words are necessary as to the way in which I have marshalled the thousands of data. The reputed localities were marked down on an outlined map of the Republic, a separate map for each species. In this way alone generalisations could be formed, often at a glance, concerning the distribution of the species and genera. Many localities, at first suspicious, revealed themselves as very doubtful or as obviously erroneous on further reference to the original papers. It was also found that the number of different localities is astonishingly small, less than 100, although they now cover a fair portion of the whole country. With the exception of 20, all these localities lie south of the line Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Tampico. The whole State of Michoacan and the western half of Guerrero are still an almost absolute terra incognita, but to judge from what I have found in Middle Guerrero and what is known from Colima, the fauna seems to be rather continuous. However, the basin of the Lower Balsas and thence to Colima will in all probability yield much of interest to whoever will brave these inhospitable and positively unknown regions. Both Godman (introduction to the volume on Rhopalocera) and Gunther, in their statistical tables, have divided Mexico simply into Northern and Southern by an absolutely arbitrary line which runs from Mazatlan to Tampico right across the country ! They have done this in spite of their correct statements about the main physical features of Mexico, the unmistakable continuation of North American forms over the Plateau, and the extension of |