564 ^ CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 



Between 1884 and 1924 Thomas L. Casey (b. 1857, d. 1925) described some 

 9,400 species, mostly from the Nearctic region. Large numbers of these were based 

 on evanescent differences and are invalid by conventional criteria. W. Horn 

 (1915) rejected 86 out of 99 of Casey's names in Cicindelidae; Leng (1920) re- 

 jected 144 out of 150 names in Buprestidae and 30 out of 34 names in Prionini; 

 Banninger (1950) could recognize only one out of 24 names in Pasimachus; and 

 Karl Holdhaus (Schroder's Handh. d. Entom. 11:899, 1927) complained that 

 Casey had so multiplied species in numerous families as largely to conceal the 

 true status of the Nearctic fauna. Casey left his collection to the National Mu- 

 seum, and, whatever one thinks of Casey's work, there can be nothing but praise 

 for the generous, intelligent cooperation shown by Mrs. Casey and the officials 

 of the Museum in preserving his material for future students. 



The almost exclusive preoccupation of Americans with their own fauna has 

 already been noted. G. H. Horn covered Throscidae and Eucnemidae in 1890 

 for the Biologia Centrali- Americana; A. Fenyes (b. 1863, d. 1937), of Pasadena, 

 covered Aleocharinae for Genera Insectorum (1918-1921); and M. H. Hatch, of 

 Seattle, did the Silphidae (1928) and Leiodidae and Clambidae (1929) for the 

 Coleopteronim Catalogus. But such contributions only served to emphasize the 

 general absence of Americans from the international scene. 



American interest in the Neotropical fauna was signalized in 1914 when Leng, 

 in collaboration with A. J. Mutchler (b. 1869), of the American Museum, pub- 

 lished a List of the Coleoptera of the West Indies (Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., 

 33:391^93). W. S. Fisher (b. 1878), at the United States National Museum, 

 revised the West Indian Buprestidae in 1925 (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 65(9) :1- 

 207) and he and other coleopterists at that institution displayed a persistent in- 

 terest in the Neotropical fauna, which culminated in R. E. Blackwelder's (b. 

 1909) Monograph of the West Indian Staphylinidae (Btdl. TJ. S. Nat. Mus., No. 

 182, 1943) and Checklist of Neotropical Coleoptera, 1944-1947 {Bull. TJ. 8. Nat. 

 Mus., No. 185). The opening up of automobile communication with Mexico in 

 the 'thirties and other factors stimulated contacts with the south, which have re- 

 sulted in contributions to the knowledge of the Neotropical fauna by Orlando 

 Park (b. 1901), of Northwestern University, in Pselaphidae, E. G. Linsley (b. 

 1910), of the University of California, in Cerambycidae, M. A. Cazier (b. 1911), 

 of the American Museum, and numerous others. World War II similarly served 

 to broaden American horizons so that, for instance, P. J. Darlington (b. 1904), 

 of Harvard, is devoting himself to circumtropical Carabidae. 



The limited status of coleopterology in the United States is revealed by the 

 fact that a year after its founding in 1949 a Coleopterists' Society had only 186 

 members, and died in 1952. The largest group of coleopterists in the country 

 is at the National Museum in Washington, where E. A. Chap in (b. 1894) is 

 curator and where the economic importance of the order assures the continua- 

 tion of a staff interested in beetles. Similar economic motives also assure the 

 permanence of such studies at Ottawa, where W. J. Brown (b. 1902) has been 

 in charge of Coleoptera since 1927. Sizable groups of coleopterists are likewise 

 centered at the Chicago Museum, where R. L. Wenzel (b. 1915) is curator, and 

 in the San Francisco Bay area, where E. S. Ross (b. 1915) is curator at the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences and E. G. Linsley chairman of the Department of 

 Entomology at the University of California. This last institution, in particular, 



