Vol. XXI] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 217 



principle, it may be well to remark on some of the crucial 

 genera upon which turn the groupings adopted. It will be 

 seen that I regard some genera formerly considered to be 

 closely allied as widely separate, and vice versa. The chief 

 character relied on by Lacordaire and his followers in dividing 

 the family into two unequal groups is the length of the meta- 

 sternum, which in Meloe et al. is very short, allowing the mid- 

 dle coxae to overlap the hind coxae. This is entirely an arti- 

 ficial character in this connection and is of course due to 

 atrophic changes following on the loss of the insect's wings in 

 the course of evolution. Occasional absence of wings in a 

 family is not so important a character in the Coleoptera as has 

 been supposed. This is well illustrated in the Carabidae. In 

 that family I have even had brought to my notice by Dr. 

 Walther Horn of Berlin a single apterous specimen of a usually 

 winged species (Calosoma reticulatum}.* The weakness of 

 the received classification of the blister beetles is well illustrated 

 by such forms as Henous (an apterous Lytta), Apterospasta 

 (an apterous Macrobasis) and especially by the insect known 

 as Calospasta opaca G. H. Horn, which I have tried to fit in 

 Fairmaire and Germain's genus Gynaptery.v, but for which 

 I now propose a new genus, viz. : 



GYNAECOMELOE Wellm. gen. nov. 



$ with general form as in Tetraonyx Latr. and some species 

 of Calospasta Lee. Elytra as long or longer than the body, 

 provided with wings, metasternum long, mesocoxae not over- 

 lapping hind coxae. 



$ with general form as in Mcloe L., elytra much shorter 

 (often less than half) than the body, apterous, metasternum 

 short, mesocoxae overlapping hind coxae. 



Claws and other characters as in Calospasta Lee. 



*Since this was written, Dr. E. C. Van Dyke has called my atten- 

 tion to other equally interesting instances of wing degeneration in the 

 genus Calosoma from the Galapagos Islands, among the Scarabaeidae 

 from the same region and especially in the Family Tenebrionidae, from 

 the Pacific Coast region. 



