Eeprinted from Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society, 

 Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4, p. 123. October, 1943. 



NOTES ON THE SYNONYMY AND DISTRIBUTION 

 OF AMERICAN HISTERIDAE (COLEOPTERA). 



By J. Chester Bradley, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



Hololepta jossiilaris Say [^aeqnalis Say]. — Say published both 

 these names together. On basis of page priority Carnochen substi- 

 tuted aequalis for the long-used jossiilaris. Marseul, as first reviser, 

 used jossiilaris, and his action stands. 



Platysoma leconti Marseul [= Platysoma depressuni Le Conte 

 1845 nee Hister depressuni Fabr.]. — Le Conte misidentified his 

 material as Hololepta depressa Paykull 181 1 [= Hister depressuni 

 Paykull, Fauna Suecica a misidentification of Hister depressum 

 Fabr., 1787]. Marseul 1853 renamed the American species (mis- 

 identified by Le Conte as depressuni) leconti. The European spe- 

 cies he treated under the name Platysoma depressuni Fabr. but 

 Bickhardt 1916 sank it as a synonym of compressum Hbst. 1783. 

 Nevertheless the name depressum is not available for any species of 

 Platysoma later than Fabricius 1787, and the custom of recent 

 American authors following Casey 191 6 to use it as valid instead of 

 leconti is incorrect and must be reversed. The original spelling 

 was leconti, not lecontei. 



Psiloscelis blanchardi Casey. This species is identified in the 

 Le Conte and Fall collections as repletus J. E. Le Conte, as it was 

 formerly in Casey's own collection. It is absurd for Casey to refer 

 to repletus as a nomen nudum an act in which he has been followed 

 by Hatch. Repletus was originally described at length and figured, 

 hence is a fully available name. It may be considered a species 

 inquirenda until the type can be located and examined, or a neotype 

 selected, and in the meantime the name blanchardi may be retained. 



Hister osculatus Blatchley and H. dispar Lee. Both belong to 

 the subgenus Paralister although not mentioned by Hinton in his re- 

 view of the subspecies of that genus (Can. Ent., 1936, 68: 268-272). 



Pseiidister hospes Lewis '02. This species was described from 

 a specimen said to have been collected by H. H. Smith at Ulster, 

 N. Y., and seems not to have been again found, at least I do not find 

 it in any collection that I have examined nor did Casey see it. It 

 was apparently known to Hinton (who published a key to the species 

 in Can. Ent., 1935, 67: 11-15) only from the type and Casey had 

 not seen it in 1916. All other species of Pseudister are neotropical, 

 and as H. H. Smith collected extensively for many years in South 

 America, sending much material to England it seems not unlikely 

 that this may really be a South American insect. Smith's New York 

 collecting was done many years earlier, is largely in the Cornell Uni- 

 versity collection and seems unlikely to have come into the hands of 

 Mr. Lewis. At any rate the species should be regarded as a mem- 

 ber of our fauna only with suspicion until it is re-discovered. 



