8o MEMOIRS ON THE COLEOPTERA 



the faintest resemblance to any American form, showing that species 

 of this tribe, in common with the Tenebrionidse generally, have 

 independently developed in the new and old world from a few 

 contemporaneous archetypes, during the time which has elapsed 

 since the continental masses were permanently separated. This, 

 among other reasons, tends to prove the Tenebrionidse to be a 

 comparatively modern type of Coleoptera (see p. 72, footnote). 



The European and African species are seemingly as numerous 

 as those of North America, or perhaps even more so, but they form a 

 still more difficult problem for the taxonomist, especially in the 

 differentiation and limitation of the genera, of which there are beyond 

 doubt a considerable number. It is only within a few years that 

 they have been at all discriminatively studied. The genera or 

 subgenera Globasida and Alphasida, very recently characterized 

 by M. M. de la Escalera, are diagnosed in the above table from 

 deformis Escal., and holosericea Germ., respectively, as I do not 

 possess their typical species; but the assumed types are probably 

 congeneric in each instance. One of these groups at least, Glob- 

 asida, is associated in the latest European catalogue with many 

 specific types which do not seem to conform to its generic characters, 

 and there are other evidences of lack of careful consideration in 

 that list of species. For example, the Sardinian species named 

 genei, by Solier, is evidently distinct from the Corsican Corsica, 

 but it appears in this catalogue as a complete synonym of the latter, 

 without even the solace of a varietal designation. Again the numer- 

 ous specific and subspecific forms clustering around certain promi- 

 nent types, bear evidence of being as completely overlooked as those 

 of our own fauna. In the case of Corsica, I have four or five dis- 

 tinct forms, some with minute granules on the elytral depressions 

 and one without trace of granulation but, instead, with fine simple 

 close-set punctures, and they differ among themselves in many 

 other ways besides; in genei the punctures are coarse and conspic- 

 uously different. So also in the cases of planipennis, dissimilis, 

 goudoti and depressa, there are many distinctly characterized related 

 forms which have been almost wholly neglected; those in the neigh- 

 borhood of sabulosa are so numerous and closely allied, that, in 

 view of their diversified sexual differences, we encounter difficulties 

 that will probably never be completely unraveled. 



