A RTK LE XX \ II I 



Revision of the Elaterida of the United States. By Join, L. ]., Conte, M. I). Read < I 



21s/, IS . 



Before proceeding to the consideration of the characters by which I have been guided 

 in my endeavour to classify the large group of Coleopterous insects herein treated of, it 

 will be proper to allude briefly to what has been alread) done in relation to this branch 

 of entomology. 



After the separation of Eucnemis by Ahrens, Pyrophorus by Illiger, and a few other 

 genera by various entomologists, the first person, who seems to have been convinced of 

 the necessity of a systematic division of the great Linnean genus Elater, was Eschscholtz. 

 This excellent naturalist published, in Thon's Entomologisches Vxchiv for 1829, a Bynop- 

 tic table of the divisions established upon the species then known to him. Finding, with 

 more extensive researches, the imperfection of the views there given, be afterwards de- 



1 another table of genera, based chiefly upon the study of the Bpecies in the collect 



of Count Dejean. 



B ing prevented by death from concluding his labours, this table remained in a manu- 

 script form for several years, but was eventually published bj Mr. Laporte in the fourth 

 volumi of Silbermann's Revue Entomologique. Mr. Laporte took oc< , at the ime 



lime, to add several new genera to those of Eschscholtz. 



The nexl addition, to <»ur knowledge of the classification of this family, i- due t<> La- 

 treille, who, howev< r, also died before concluding his investigations; the imp* i ilts 



of which, unfortunately in a very confused form, are published, as a posthumous mci r, 



in the third volume of the lir-t series of the Annales de la Societc Entomologique de 

 I ranee. 



In the firsl volume of lu~ Zeitschrifl fur Entomologie, Germar reprinted all of I '.-< h- 

 noptic table, thai r< \.i\>- to genuine Elaterida;, and Mien proceeded to the con- 

 sideration of separate groups of g< nera ; admitting, however, thai th< • group . founded 



upon so ideas of Eschsi holtz on the value of the lobes of the tarsal joint purely 



artificial, but confessing thai until the isolated genera were more fullj defined, noth 

 could be done towards a natural classification: a view repeated bj Erichson in his mono 

 graph of Elati rs with pectinate tarsal i laws, in the third volume of the Bame work. 



