1919.1 



173 



Platic X. — lug. 13, Protlioracic plate of pupa with dorsal head-piece, x 42. 

 Fig. 14. Metathoracic plate of pupa, X 42. It will be noticed that its 

 position has been reversed, i. e., its right-liand pointed piece (hind-wing 

 cover) is against the niesotlioracic plate, and the margin that should 

 have been there is against the wing ; the niesotlioracic plate shows 

 similar sculpturing to the nietathorax, the wing-cover has only 

 reticulations. 



Pl.^te XI. — Fig. 15. Spiracular region of hfth and sixth abdominal seg- 

 ments, X 42. Fig. 16. Spiracle of fifth abdominal segment further 

 enlarged, showing lenticles, hairs, &c., and something of structure of 

 spiracle. The photographs are all by Mr. A. E. Tonge. 



lieigate. 



April 1919. 



ON THE TAXONOMY OF THE HISTERIDAE. 

 BY UEOEGE LEWIS, F.L.S. 



The part of tlie " Genera Iiisectoi'uni " to wliicb I referred in this 

 Magazine in October 1915, p. 289, has now been published, and it will 

 remain with Entomologists generally to accept or reject its peculiar 

 taxonomy. A very few Coleopterists have specially studied the His- 

 teridae and collectors abroad have had little inducement to pay attention 

 to their capture, for which some knowledge of their varying habits is 

 necessary. When collecting in Japan during two consecutive summers 

 I only found a single example of Uetaerius. 



In my note of 1915 I attributed the publication of the new 

 taxonomy to M. P. Wytsman, but M. Wytsman later informed me 

 that it was arranged by tlie late Dr. Veth, who died at the Hague in 

 August 1917. 



The dominant characters in the classilication of the Histeridae are 

 brieriy set forth in my catalogue of 1905, first those Avith a non-retractile 

 head — Nipouius, Trypanaeiis, and Hololepta, each belonging to a group 

 very distinct in itself — and then follows the genera in which the head 

 is retractile and during rest is concealed by a prominent prosternal lobe. 

 The next division contains genera whose species are more heterogeneous, 

 and have a mesosternum more or less projecting and a prosternum incised 

 for its reception ; it contains also species with the mesosternum merely 

 bisinuous anteriorly and the prosternum not cut out at its base. Saprinus, 

 again, stands apart like Trypanaeus and Hololepta by reason of the 

 different construction of its sternal plates and of the sculpture above, 

 which is persistent throughout the group and prevents their close asso- 

 ciation with any other. 



