HATCH: COLEOPTERA 561 



geographical variations has occurred especially in species with variable color 

 patterns belonging to such genera as Cicindela and Nicrophorus and to fami- 

 lies like Coccinellidae, Ceranibycidae, and Chrysomelidae. The result was that 

 Luigioni's catalogue of I Coleotteri d'ltalia (1929) listed 9,979 species, 1,371 

 subspecies, and about 3,100 aberrations in that fauna. 



Third, there was the discovery of the great utility of the male genitalia in the 

 separation of species. In many genera species that can be separated only with 

 great difficulty or not at all on the basis of external structure are readily dis- 

 tinguished by aedeagal characters. The result has been a growing tendency in 

 the last thirty or forty years to employ genital characters in distinguishing spe- 

 cies, and some authors go to the extreme of regarding their figures of the geni- 

 talia as sufficient exposition of the differences involved without supplementary 

 verbalization. 



The present interest in beetles in Europe seems unabated at both the profes- 

 sional and amateur levels. Virtually every country from the British Isles and 

 Prance to Eumania and Russia has the requisite faunal works to aid and 

 encourage such studies. Paulian (Col. Bull. 11:42, 1948) tells of an amateur 

 group, the "Coleopteristes de la Seine," with more than two hundred members 

 in Paris alone. France, Sweden, and the USSR have elaborate works on their 

 faunas in process of current publication. In Germany there is the incredible 

 detail of 0. Rapp's Kafer TMringens (1934-1935, 3 vols., 2,000 pages). This 

 work starts with a list of 389 men who have contributed to the coleopterology 

 of Thuringia. This is followed by bibliographic, distributional, and ecological 

 data on 4,381 species, and the book concludes with an exhaustive reanalysis of 

 the list in terms of habits and habitats. Adolf Horion, moreover, is currently 

 issuing a new Yerzeichnis der Kafer Mitteleuropas (Abt. 1, 1951) and an ex- 

 tremely detailed critical Faunistik der Mitteleuropaschen Kafer (Bd. I, 1941; 

 Bd. II, 1949). 



The one somber note is struck by the Communist government of the USSR. 

 Since the 'twenties the Russians have been unwilling to allow non-Communist 

 foreigners to collect insects in their domain, and since World War II, this same 

 prohibition has been extended to large areas in both Europe and Asia. In re- 

 taliation, moreover, extensive areas of the West are closed to the Communists. 

 The result is that it is impossible at present to assemble by direct field work a 

 world collection. It is to be hoped that such conditions will not long endure. 



In another respect, likewise, the Russian Communists are exerting an un- 

 fortunate influence on the study of beetles. Beginning in 1936 the Academy of 

 Sciences of the USSR began to issue a Coleoptera section of the Faune de 

 rURSS on a scale that promised to make it one of the great Coleoptera faunas, 

 subjecting the beetles of the vast Russian empire to precise analysis. The first 

 volumes were mainly in Russian, but contained extensive appendices giving 

 German translations of the keys and of the descriptions of the new species, thus 

 making the analysis available to an international audience. Parts issued in 

 1950 change this arrangement. The French title page and all sections in Ger- 

 man, including descriptions of new species, have been eliminated, thus violating 

 the specific recommendation of the International Code of Zoological Nomencla- 

 ture. This vastly limits the international utility of the books and suggests that 

 new names so proposed may be regarded as nomena nuda. 



