Ill A REVISION OF THE NEARCTIC HARPALIN^E. 



It is hoped that in judging the following work, some allowance 

 will be made for inherent difficulties, which are sufficiently well 

 known to all those who have given the subfamily serious considera- 

 tion. The apparent monotony and indefiniteness of the species, 

 has served to deprive this section of the Carabidse of much con- 

 sideration, for there is not even the compensation, offered by the 

 equally indefinite Chlaeniid species, of having an attractive colora- 

 tion. I have found the study of the Harpalids very interesting; 

 they are by no means devoid of very marked structural diversity. 



Subfamily HARPALIN^:. 



It seems preferable to regard the major groups of Carabidse, which 

 were termed tribes by LeConte and Horn, as subfamilies, after the 

 general European custom. The subfamilies can then be sub- 

 divided into tribes and these into groups. At any rate, I find this 

 to be a more convenient system in the case of such an unwieldy 

 complex as the Harpalinae and the suggested method of subdivision 

 seems also to express relative weights more consistently. 



The classification of the Carabidse now in vogue has been of 

 very gradual evolution. The arbitrary arrangement of the earlier 

 authors was measurably improved by the work of LeConte (Trans. 

 Am. Phil. Soc., 1853), to such a degree in fact that Lacordaire in- 

 serted the arrangement of our able and honored predecessor in its 

 entirety, as an appendix to the first volume of his still invaluable 

 work on the genera of the Coleoptera. It is easy to trace some sub- 

 sequent generalizations from this early work of LeConte. For 

 example, further examination of the character relating to the 

 mesosternal parapleura led to the detection of the fundamental 

 structure now utilized for the division of our Carabidse into two 

 sections, as stated in the classification of LeConte and Horn, 

 based upon the extension of the mesosternal epimera in the direction 

 of the coxse. The other two discoveries of the systematists just 

 mentioned, that have given us our present arrangement probably 



45 



