114 Arthur M. Lea: 



Mosses and lichens are extraordinarily productive of beetles, 

 of small size mostly, but many of great beauty or singular 

 form. And yet most collectors never even cursorily examine 

 moss, let alone tear it to pieces or sieve it over white paper. 



Tussocks of grasses and sedges are also very productive in 

 autumn and winter, and are usually neglected by collectors. As 

 are also fallen leaves in forests. 



Of our common trees the casuarinas produce many species 

 that are found on no others ; the genus Misophrice, for instance, 

 is practically confined to them. Several entomologists have 

 carefully searched for species of this genus in N.S. Wales, S. 

 and W. Australia, and Tasmania, with the result that numerous 

 species have been recorded from those States. But from north 

 of the 29th deg. apparently not a single species has been taken ; 

 and yet it is probable that in the northern parts of the con- 

 tinent they are at least as numerous as in the southern. 



In New Zealand many beetles are to be obtained in the dead 

 fronds of the larger ferns ; but this source has been practically 

 untouched in Australia. 



Breeding, except for a few species of economic importance, 

 is also a neglected source of specimens. A few grubby sticks 

 of even our common wattle and gum trees will often yield 

 beetles in abundance that are seldom or never found in the 

 open. Even such highly important timber-destroying species 

 as the Scolytidae have been neglected ; plain proof of this being 

 the description or record, in the present paper, of a greater 

 number of species than all hitherto recorded from Australia. 



Of other families that have been more or less neglected there 

 may be mentioned Hydrophilidae, Staphylinidae, Pselapliidae, 

 Scydmaenidae, Silphidae, TricJiopterygidae, {Phalacridae, 

 Cryptophagidat, Dermestidae, Elateridae, Dascillidae, Ptini- 

 dae, Cistelidae, Melandryidae, AnfJncidae and C orylophidae ; 

 and several sub-families of Chrysonielidae and Curculionidae. 

 And it may be taken for granted that any entomologist desirous 

 of describing new species would be certain of finding such 

 species in even a small collection of any of the families men- 

 tioned, whilst new species are far from being exhausted even in 

 such showy groups as the Cicindelidae, Buj^restidae, Ceramhy- 

 cidae and Cetonides. 



