19)5.1 113 



STUDIES IN HELOPHOBINI. 



BY D. SHARP, M.A., F.E.S. 



3.— REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMATIC CHARACTERS. 



The Heloj)horini are admitted to be a neglected group, and one 

 that has uever received the careful attention that has been bestowed 

 on several other divisions of the Coleoptera. 



The principal writer about them is the late Herr A. Kuwert, who 

 gave the group his attention for many years, and in 1885 and 1886 

 published a table for the determination of tlie European forms, which 

 for the time was of considerable assistance. In 1890 he gave us 

 a much more ambitious work (Verh. Ver. Briinn, xxviii) which, 

 however, as explained by Zaitzev in the introduction to his catalogue, 

 has given rise to great difficulties. It is in the form of a long table 

 of 48 pages, and though the work of a clever entomologist who knew 

 much of the insects he was dealing with, is executed in a manner so 

 hasty and rash, that it can only be cleared up thoroughly by the aid 

 of his collections and types. G-anglbauer has already done something 

 towards correcting Kuwert' s errors, and Zaitzev has treated the work 

 in a judicious manner, but still it leaves many puzzles. 



It will perhaps be of some assistance to future students if I 

 make some remarks on the characters that have been made use of, or 

 that appear to me to be available for the discrimination of the species 

 and for the estimation of their relationships. Indeed, without such a 

 sketch it will not be possible to understand the genera I shall 

 propose, which will be more numerous than those briefly indicated in 

 the key I gave in the first part of these studies. Kuwert made use of 

 certain characters in an arbitrary and incomplete manner, cUie 

 probably to his having failed to follow them out in a sufficient variety 

 of forms. Great as are the natural difficulties of the^ Helophorini, 

 they are, one naay almost say, increased rather than diminished l)y the 

 existing literature. 



The palpi are important. The last joint of the labial palp is very 

 remarkable as it exhibits the unusual character of bearing numerous 

 very fine long hairs, which exist in all the genera except in the 

 EmpJeurns forms, where they are completely absent, except in Em- 

 pleurus proper which exhibits these hairs in a condition of minor 

 development. 



The maxillary palps — or at any rate their terminal segment — are 



