HATCH: COLEOPTERA 557 



At the same time that coleopterology was reaching maturity in its homeland, 

 it was spreading east and west. Mannerheim (b. 1804, d. 1854) and Carl R. 

 Sahlberg (b. 1779, d. 1860) represented the extension of beetle studies into 

 Finland. In northeastern United States, Thomas Say (b. 1787, d. 1834) had de- 

 scribed some 1,150 new species after 1818 and T. W. Harris (b. 1795, d. 1856) 

 in 1833 had published a list of 994 species from Massachusetts. 



The greatest coleopterist of this first century of the science was Count Au- 

 guste Dejean (b. 1780, d. 1845), peer and councilor of France. Dejean assembled 

 the world's largest collection; he published extensively on the Carabidae of Eu- 

 rope and the world; and he issued a Catalogue of his collections, which in its last 

 edition of 1837 enumerated 22,399 species and was as near to a world list as 

 the period provided. 



The Second Century of European Coleopterology 



The opening of the second century of coleopterology found the French in the 

 ascendancy and about to produce two of the sort of sjaithetic works which are 

 perennially necessary in an expanding empirical science, if it is to be kept from 

 falling into chaos. The Genera des Coleopteres of Th. Lacordaire (b. 1810, d. 

 1870) in twelve volumes (1854—1876) — the last three volumes by F. Chapuis 

 (b. 1824, d. 1879) — provided a description of the genera of the world. The 

 Genera des Coleopteres d'Europe by Camile Jacquelin du Val (b. 1828, d. 

 1862) and L. Fairmaire (b. 1820, d. 1906) in four large volumes (1854-1868), 

 with 292 colored plates, gave keys to and descriptions of the European genera 

 and a synonymical catalogue of the species. 



At this same time W. F. Erichson (b. 1809, d. 1849), H. Schaum (b. 1819, 

 d. 1865), G. Kraatz (b. 1831, d. 1909), and H. von Kiesenwetter (b. 1820, d. 

 1880) were working on the Coleoptera section of a NaturgeschicJite der Insecten 

 Deutschlands in many volumes. Volumes I to IV appeared from 1845 to 1867, 

 covering Adephaga, Staphylinidae, Laraellicornia, and extensive portions of the 

 Serricornia and Clavicornia.^ Likewise incomplete and similarly ambitious was 

 E. Mulsant (b. 1797, d. 1880) and CI. Key's (b. 1817, d. 1895) Histoire Naturelle 

 des Coleopteres de France (1839-1884), still only fragmentary after the publi- 

 cation of thirty-seven volumes. 



Not all the many-volumned faunistic surveys remained incomplete. C. G. 

 Thomson's (b. 1824, d. 1899) Skandinaviens Coleoptera was finished in ten vol- 

 umes, (1859-1868), and, somewhat later, AV. W. Fowler's (b. 1849, d. 1923) 

 Coleoptera of the British Islands appeared in five volumes (1887-1891), with 

 180 plates, illustrating about 2,230 species. Thomson, in particular, was a very 

 able coleopterist. He split genera rather more finely than was acceptable in 

 his day, but ever since his names have been coming slowly into general use. 



The years 1862 and 1863 saw the publication of Ilagen's Bihliotheca Ento- 

 mologica. Die Litteratur iiher das game Gehiet der Entomologie his zum Jahre 

 1862. A continuation of Hagen's Bihliotheca to cover the second century of Cole- 

 optera studies is a desideratum that is only very partially met by the "Biblio- 



1. The work was never completed, but later there appeared, in 1882, Vol. 11(2), by E. 

 Reitter (b. 1845, d. 1920) on Silphidae and allies; Vol. V (1877-1920), by G. von Seidlitz 

 (b. 1840, d. 1917) on Anobiidae and extensive portions of the Heteromera; and Vol. VI 

 (1881-1893), by J. Weise (b. 1844, d. 1925) on Chrysomelidae. 



