THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 257 



REMARKS ON SOME NEW PSELAPHID^. 



BY THOS. L. CASEY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



The systematic descriptive compilation of all the known genera of 

 Pselaphidce, with catalogue of species, by Mr. Achille Raffray, recently 

 published as one of the series of the "Genera Insectorura,"by Wytsman, is 

 an epoch-making work, and one that should be very highly valued. The 

 same exquisite drawings of these marvellous Utile animals that we have 

 become accustomed to associate with the various papers of the author, 

 and which could only emanate from an unusually skillful artist thoroughly 

 in love with his subject, are even more numerous and more carefully 

 elaborated than in any other of his publications. The many figures 

 representing anatomical details must have cost the author much time and 

 patience, and of them no element of praise, from any point of view, could 

 be superfluous. It is only to be regretted that the proof-reading of the 

 publishers is not all that could be desired, and the text therefore 

 bristles with typographical errors and inconsistencies which must surely 

 try the good temper of the author, who informs me inferentially that this 

 will be the concluding monument to his memory ; but that he may be 

 mistaken in this, and that he may live to give us many more important 

 papers, is the earnest wish of his numerous friends. 



Of the 31 Pselaphid genera proposed by the present writer, 21 are 

 adopted and 10 rejected ; one of these rejected genera is, however, 

 admitted to be valid, though under another name. I am sure that my 

 long-time friend, David Sharp, would be one of the first to repudiate the 

 inadvertent violation of the laws of priority on page 53, where ThesiutJi, 

 Csy., is made a synonym of y^/^^MzV/z^i', Sharp, although the former was 

 published in 1884, and the latter did not see the light until 1887. There 

 are therefore 22 genera considered valid to 9 held to be synonyms. Of 

 these nine rejectamenta three, /. «?., Rafonus, Pyc7iopleciiis and Zoliu7n^ 

 are plainly distinct genera, as may be realized very readily in the case of 

 Rafonus by comparing the figure of a typical species of Sonof?ia, published 

 in Bull. Cal. Acad.. 1887, and that given for the type of Rafonus {Faronus 

 tolulce, Lee), on plate I of Mr. Raffray's work. In Pycnopledus the head 

 is wholly different from that of Euplecttis^ where there are two approxi- 

 mate foveae continued longitudinally forward in feeble grooves, which 

 sometimes unite with a conspicuous transverse rectilinear impression 

 behind the frontal margin, and between the supra-antennal fove?e marking 



August, 1908 



