June i,oo.] Casey: On North American Coleopte?a. 129 



may tend to bring about permanent agreement, assuming that it is 

 never too late to correct a mistake, however repugnant it may be to 

 our spirit of conservatism. The name Triplax is therefore to be re- 

 established in the Erotylidoe. 



The present family is taken up for investigation at this time, 

 primarily to draw attention to the inharmonious and composite scope 

 which has been given to it hitherto by our systematists. Of the genera 

 which have been included within its limits by LeConte and Horn, 

 Diplocoelus and Biphylhts are assigned by Heyden, Reitter and Wise 

 to the Cryptophagidae, which disposition of them is eminently ap- 

 propriate. Hypocoprus forms a subfamily of Cucujidae near the Mono- 

 tominae, and is also to be removed. 



Again, as an important fact because affecting both the European 

 and American scope of the family, it should be stated that Berginus 

 is in no wise allied to the Tritomidas, but belongs near Lyctus, in fact 

 only distinguishable from that genus by the obliquely truncate maxil- 

 lary palpi.* 



Finally, but by no means least, it is to be remarked that the Euro- 

 pean TriphyUus does not occur in America, the species assigned by 

 LeConte and Horn to that genus forming in reality two purely hetero- 

 merous genera in the vicinity of the malandryid Tetratoma. The 

 Tetratomini are distinguished from other Malandryid^ by the 3- or 4- 

 jointed antennal club, and will be alluded to in more detail near the 

 close of the present paper. 



The present family is evidently closely related to the Trixagidae 



* The following is an interesting new species of Berginus : — 



Very slender, convex, blackish, the under surface, legs and antennae paler; head and pronotum 

 coarsely and closely punctured, the elytra with approximate series of similar coarse and close-set 

 but well-defined punctures, each puncture throughout bearing a very small recurved squamiform 

 hair ; prothorax as long as wide, slightly narrower than the elytra and a little wider than the head, 

 the sides arcuate and parallel ; eyes small and prominent ; antennae slender, the two basal joints 

 larger and the club 2-jointed; under surface coarsely, sparsely punctured, except the last four 

 segments of the abdomen which are finely and longitudinally strigato-punctate, the first segment 

 as long as the next three combined; legs short, the femora stout, the tibiae and tarsi slender. 

 Length 0.9-1.2 mm. ; width 0.32-0.42 mm. Bahama Island (Eleuthera) — Mr. Wickham. 



bahamicus, sp. nov. 

 Differs from pi/»ti/i/s in its smaller size, more slender form, evenly seriato-punctate 

 elytra, even pronotum and general habitus. I have taken pumihts in abundance at 

 San Diego, California ; it has an almost entire longitudinal impression at each side of 

 the pronotum, which exists in the European tamarisci only as a minute basal impression, 

 and in bahamicus is wholly wanting ; it was described from Pennsylvania, but per- 

 haps this may be an error. 



