276 CASEY 



ation of the genera, and I may have overstepped the limit of 

 prevailing conservatism in proposing so many of them, but it 

 seems certain that the proportion of wholly unnecessary names : 

 that is, titles that are not at any rate subgeneric if not tully 

 generic, will prove to be very small indeed. The limitation or 

 extension in scope of genera and subgenera is, with the dis- 

 covery of more complete material, becoming increasingly arbi- 

 trary and opinionative. 



As in all of the more recent investigations of the writer, as 

 much foreign material as possible has been accumulated for 

 study in connection with our own, and this method is recom- 

 mended to all those who would attempt systematic work upon a 

 restricted fauna, as being more liable to produce results that 

 may be valuable to a general monographer, if, in the future, 

 there may develop anyone willing and able to take up such a 

 life work as a general monograph of the larger families of 

 Coleoptera is rapidly becoming. The foreign groups thus 

 included for comparison are indicated, as formerly, by a pre- 

 fixed asterisk in the tables of tribes and genera. 

 Washington, June 10, 1907. 



Order COLEOPTERA ; Family TENEBRIONID^. 



Subfamily Tentyriin^. 



The Tenebrionidae in general have ever been a stumbling- 

 block to the systematic investigator, for the reason that radical 

 structural divergencies, constant through extended groups, are 

 so few in number and minor group characters, in all manner of 

 unexpected directions, so infinitely varied. In considering the 

 Tenebrionidae of the world, even so talented a morphologist as 

 Lacordaire found these troubles practically insurmountable, and 

 it is therefore with diflSdence that I venture here upon a pro- 

 nounced departure from the usual succession and arrangement 

 of the numerous tribes of the subfamily Tentyriinae, as defined 

 by LeConte and Horn. 



By studying carefully some of the palaearctic types of the 

 Tenebrionidae, I find the apparent relationships of some of our 

 more isolated genera, such as Cranioius, which is evidently the 



