FALL AND COCKKRELL. 145 



THE COL,EOPTERA OF l^EW MEXICO. 



BY H. C. PALL AND T. D. A. COCKERELL. 



The list of New Mexico Coleoptera was begun in 1893 as a card- 

 catalogue in the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the 

 New Mexico Agricultural College. At that time the principal 

 sources of information were the excellent lists published by Dr. 

 Snow in the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Sciences, and 

 the records of Professor C. H. T. Townsend, the first entomologist at 

 the New Mexico Agricultural College. There were, in addition, a 

 number of records published at different times by Drs. LeConte, 

 Horn and others, and efforts were made to find and include all of 

 them. Professor H. F. Wickham, of the University of Iowa, hear- 

 ing of the proposed list, very kindly supplied his numerous manu- 

 script records, mainly from Albuquerque, and in addition identified 

 many species collected in the Mesilla Valley. The first part of the 

 list (Cicindelidse and Carabidse) appeared in Bulletin 24 of the New 

 Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station (1897), and the remaining 

 families in Bulletin 28 of the same institution (1898). The list as 

 then presented included about 1170 species and races; since that 

 time it has nearly been doubled. During recent years all the new 

 material has been examined by Mr. Fall, in whose cabinet most of 

 it is, and all the descriptions of new species a re by him. Very im- 

 portant contributions have been made by Mr. W. Knaus, as a result 

 of his several summer trips to the Sacramento Mountains ; numerous 

 other records are due to Mr. E. A. Schwarz, Mr. H. L. Viereck, Dr. 

 Fenyes, etc., to all of whom detailed credit is given in the list. 



New Mexico is a region of more or less isolated mountain ranges, 

 with desert country between. Thus the fauna of the higher levels 

 finds itself cut off from possibilities of migration, and what are prac- 

 tically insular conditions prevail. Indeed the desert is for many 

 types of life more impassible than the sea, since the latter can some- 

 times be crossed on floating timber. The fauna of no one of these 

 New Mexico ranges is anything like completely known, but we are 

 familiar with species of snails and other organisms, endemic upon 

 them. It is altogether too early to say how far these mountains may 

 be endowed with peculiars type of Coleoptera ; because there has not 



TRANS. AM. KNT. SOC. XXXIII. (19) MAY, 1907. 



