2 
NORTH AMERICAN THROSCIDAE 
That Blanchard made so few contributions to systematic 
Coleopterology is due largely to two causes. First, because so 
large a share of his leisure was devoted to the interests of his 
numerous entomological correspondents, and again because of 
his unwillingness to publish anything without having acquired 
complete and exhaustive information on the subject. How 
nearly impossible of attainment is this latter condition, is well 
known to anyone who has attempted to prepare a review of even 
a very small group of our Coleoptera. The desire for thorough- 
ness, therefore, however laudable up to a certain point, results, if 
carried to extremes, in depriving us even of the half loaf, which is 
certainly better than no bread. 
In the following pages everything is to be accredited to the 
author of the manuscript, except such statements as are enclosed 
in brackets or placed as footnotes. No bibliography was pre- 
pared by Mr. Blanchard. For such, consult Horn’s paper ^ 
for the older species. The others are for the first time described 
in the present paper, except a small number by Mr. Schaeffer, 
which appeared in the Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological 
Society.^ H. C. Fall.] 
Linnaeus, in 1767, described Elater dermestoides, which was 
later (1796) made the basis for Latreille’s genus Throscus. There 
has been more or less discussion as to the systematic position of 
the genus and its associates ever since; Lacordaire, Bonvouloir 
and LeConte ranking the group as a family, while later writers 
consider that it forms a subfamily of the Elateridae, returning 
to the Linnaean conception, and Dr. Horn in the Biologia, with- 
out discussing the subject, admits that it does not differ in any 
important respect from Elateridae. 
In the classification of LeConte and Horn it is said of the 
Throscidae that “they do not possess the power of leaping, like 
most species of the Elateridae, and the fixity of the prothorax on 
the trunk would show that any such act is mechanically impos- 
sible.” This has not, however, always been held and it was af- 
firmed by some of the earlier writers to the contrary. A little 
examination of the pro- and meso-sternum shows the existence of 
a structure more or less analogous to that of the Elateridae, and 
close observations of the living insects in the genera Throscus 
’Trans. Am. Ent. Soc., xii, p. 198, (1885). 
4916, p. 62. 
