vi INTRODUCTION. 



It is, I think, a significant fact that the Erotylidae and Endomychidse still prefer, or 

 are almost always associated with, the highly nitrogenous pabulum afforded by fungi. 



With regard to the distribution of these families so much is new that it has very 

 greatly modified our earlier ideas, and so many new facts no doubt remain to be 

 discovered that hasty generalizations must not be draw T n. When Lacordaire wrote 

 his Monograph of Erotylidse, it was thought that the New World was very plainly 

 the home of these beetles ; but subsequent collections from the Eastern hemisphere 

 showed that these regions were possibly as well stocked. The numerous species of 

 this family brought to notice in the present work have tended to restore the apparent 

 supremacy of the Western Continent, but I believe it will prove to be more apparent 

 than real. 



Taking the Languriides, Chapuis, in the ' Genera Coleopterorum,' notices two 

 genera only ; Crotch, in his ' Revision,' admits fifteen ; and in my ' Classification,' 

 published in 1887, I found it necessary to propose thirty-two, while two or three more 

 have since been added. The number of genera enumerated in this volume from 

 Central America is fourteen, while of the sixty-nine species recorded, fifty are treated 

 as new. It is probable that an equal number of species exist in both hemispheres. 



Of the true Erotylidse (the Dacnides, Triplacides, and Erotylides) fifty-six genera 

 are recognized by Crotch, and fifty-seven in the Munich Catalogue, with 1011 species 

 (omitting Helota and Orestia, the last-mentioned being an ordinary member of the 

 Phytophaga). Thirty-five genera are found in the New World, five only of which are 

 common to both hemispheres ; of these latter, Euxestus, Dacne, Triplax, and 

 Cyrtotriplax ( = Tritoma) are feeble forms whose relations are not yet well defined, 

 and are, moreover, indicative of the northern regions of the globe. It is therefore to 

 be observed that only one genus of well-ascertained position, viz. Megalodacne, is 

 represented in both hemispheres. From the region under investigation we have 

 recorded thirty- two genera and 213 species, nine genera and 104 species being treated 

 as new. To compare the ascertained Fauna with that of the Old World it would 

 be necessary to take into account a large number of new genera proposed by myself 

 and others since the publication of the Munich Catalogue and of the Supplement to it. 

 The only conclusion, I think, we can at present draw from these data is that while a 

 very large number of new species remain to be discovered in all parts of the world, 

 the predominance, both of genera and species, though not large, is in favour of the 

 New World, and that the forms of this highly developed family of beetles are 



