THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 405 



THE FAMILY NAME LYGJEIDJE. 



BY E. BERGROTH, FITCHBURG, MASS. 



Mr. Kirkaldy has shown that Lygseidae cannot be used as a name 

 for the family that has hitherto borne this name, the type of the genus 

 Lygceus being a Coreid. He has also, without ostensible reasons, trans- 

 ferred the name Lyggeidse upon the family Coreidoe, a procedure which 

 has already brought on considerable confusion, and which must be 

 dismissed as entirely unwarranted. The genera Coreus, Fabr., and 

 ■Lyg&us, Fabr., were described for the first time in the same work (1794). 

 Moreover, the description of Coreus is printed some pages ahead of 

 Lygceus. There is thus absolutely no reason to follow Kirkaldy in this 

 point. The same is true of several generic alterations and transpositions 

 introduced by Kirkaldy and too rashly accepted by some contemporary 

 hemipterists. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



A Monographic Revision of the Coleoptera Belonging to the 

 Tenebrionid Tribe Eleodiini inhabiting the United States, Lower 

 California and adjacent Islands. By Frank E. Blaisdell, Sr., United 

 States National Museum, Bulletin 63, Washington, 1909. 

 The above monograph by Dr. Blaisdell furnishes us a striking example 

 of the application of thorough methods of entomological study. Discard- 

 ing the superficial criteria employed by most of his predecessors in dis- 

 cussing this difficult group, he has made exhaustive anatomical investiga- 

 tions of the exoskeleton, and especially of the genital organs, basing his 

 subgeneric classification particularly upon these latter structures. In 

 Eleodes, however, the female characters are those upon which special 

 stress is laid, while in general, not only in this country, but in the 

 numerous European papers in which the genitalia are employed in classi- 

 fication, the male has served as the chief guide. The supplementary table, 

 based upon features which may be seen without dissection, will doubtless 

 be more readily followed by the great mass of students. The importance 

 of the sexual organs in defining species (as understood by Dr. Blaisdell) 

 is easily appreciated when we read on page 32 that "each species may 

 have its extreme large (gigantism) and small (nanism) forms ; its smooth 

 and rough forms, elongate and robust forms, while the sculpturing varies 

 from comparatively smooth to rough, independently of size or form. This 

 may be accounted for by environment to a great extent and to certain 



November, 1909 



