1901.] 143 



THE TYPES OF HEER'S FAUNA COLEOPTERORUM HELVETICA. 



BY D. SIIAKP, JI.A., M.B., F R.S., &c. 



Ill iSil the l.itc Professor (). Hcer publisiied ;i volume called 

 " Fauij.-i Coleopteroruiii belvetiea." This extended to the iirst half 

 of the Colcuptera, and the work was never completed, no second 

 volume having been added. Many new species were described, and 

 the novelties were chiefly in the more difficult groups. Heer's species 

 have never been thoroughly elucidated ; some of them still stand in 

 the European catalogues as mere names. 



In the middle part of the nineteenth century M. de La])orte 

 Comte de Casteluau, formed by purchase, exchange, &c., a very large 

 collection of Coleoptera, and on leaving France for Australia he took 

 this collection with hiui. lie died about thirty years ago, and his 

 collections were then sent back to France lo be sold and were 

 entrusted to the well-known French entomological agent, M. IJenri 

 Ueyrolle. I went to Paris to see these collections, and purchased the 

 Staphylinidcc and Hydrophilidce. Included in my purchase there was 

 a considerable number of specimens which M. Deyrolle assured me 

 were the types of Heer's " Fauna helvetica." I have recently had 

 several enquiries addressed to me about these types and the degree of 

 authenticity that attaches to them, and I think it desirable to give 

 what information I can about them. 



I learned, I think from M. Deyrolle, that Castelnau obtained 

 these specimens by the purchase of the collection of M. Chevrier, of 

 Geneva. Evidently Castelnau attached considerable im[)ortance to 

 these specimens. They were nearly all gummed on cards, and had 

 been floated off and gummed on to these cards by Castelnau. On the 

 [)in of each card was a label written in the straggling handwriting of 

 Castelnau of the following nature, "" planiuscula, Heer, Geneve." 

 The name of the genus was not mentioned on the label, but was left 

 to be inferred from the situation of the specimens in the collection. 



In old days entomologists did not label their types as such, and I 

 have no means of knowing whether these " types " are the actual 

 specimens described by Heer. I have, however, no doubt that the 

 specimens formed part of the collection of Chevrier as I was informed 

 by M. Heyrolle. Heer commences his descriptions of new species by 

 writing sometimes " 0. litifjiosa, Chevrier," sometimes " O. litigiosa, 

 mihi." The Chevrierian species are mostly said by Heer to be 

 " Oenf. rarissime.'" Evidently Heer did not himself possess these 

 Chevrierian species, and it is highly probable that the specimens of 



