THE FLOlllSSANT LAKE BASIN. 27 



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procligious number of ants; while tlie case is reversed in Coleoptera, which A^ ' 

 form nearly one-half the specimens found at Oeningen and only 13 i)er 

 cent, at Florissant. We possess no count of the specimens found at Rado- 

 boj, in Croatia, which is regrettable, since the fauna of Florissant appears 

 to agree much better with it than with any other in one or two points, such 

 as the comparatively minor part played by the Coleoptera and the great 

 number of ants; these latter number fifty-seven species in Radoboj, and five 

 hundred specimens have been found of one of them. Still the comparison 

 can not be carried very closely into other departments; for instance, only 

 one rhynchophorous coleopteron has been reported from Radoboj, while 

 they are very numerous and rich in species at Florissant, and local causes 

 must have had much to do with the fauna of each of these localities. It is 

 hardly worth while to institute any inquiries into the proportion of the 

 groups represented at Florissant and in amber, since the nature of the 

 entombment is entirely difi'erent. 



Since so far as the Florissant in'sects are concerned only the lower 

 orders are reported upon in the present volume, it may be worth while to 

 present a rapid sketch of the higher orders, to complete in however imper- 

 fect a way the partial view of the Florissant insect fauna which the volume 

 aff'ords. 



About three-fifths of the Coleoptera belong to the normal series and 

 two-fifths to the rhynchophorous division. There are eighty to ninety spec- 

 imens of Carabidge, including, perhaps, twenty-five species; many of them are 

 very fine and perfect, especially in the sculpturing of the elytra. Water- 

 beetles are not so numerous as would be anticipated; indeed, there are very 

 few specimens, with perhaps half a dozen species; there are no large species 

 such as occur abundantly at Oeningen; the largest of our species, perhaps 

 an Hydrophilus, not exceeding twelve millimeters in length. The Staphy- 

 linidse are rather more numerous than tlie ground-beetles, with over thirty 

 species, some of them tolerably large. There are half a dozen species of 

 Nitidulidse.. Some sixty or more Scarabteidai show considerable variety, 

 there being nearl}^ thirty species among them. Nearly as many Buprestidie 

 have quite as great variety of form; a considerable number of them are large 

 and nearly all fairly preserved, some remarkably perfect; one species, Chry- 

 sobothris haydeni, has been described. Elateridae are more abundant, num- 

 bering more than one hundred species, many of them in beautiful condi- 



