Except for a few species in the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Fiji, the luminous Elateridae are unknown in the eastern hemisphere.
The common bittern (Botaurus stellaris) is nearly as large as the heron, and is widely distributed over the eastern hemisphere.
Its medieval importance as an intermediary of trade between Europe and the East was greatly impaired by the opening of the Red Sea route, and finally abolished by the Suez Canal; and Syria is at present important mainly for the sentimental reason that it contains the holiest places of Judaism and Christianity, and for the strategic reason that it lies on the flank of the greatest traderoute of the eastern hemisphere.
The herring inhabiting the corresponding latitudes of the North Pacific is another species, but most closely allied to that of the eastern hemisphere.
Jule, the regional commander for the eastern hemisphere and the oldest of the three of them by far, had come from the same world as the Watchers but refused to talk about it.
