CLASSIFICATION OF COLEOPTERA. 349 



either by Lameere or by Kolbe, or even the two groups Can- 

 tharoidea and Dascilloidea, under which we find the Diversi- 

 cornia arranged in the last edition of the ' Catalogus Coleopter- 

 orum Europse.' 



Some of the groups, as, for example, Kolbe's Malacodermata, 

 are no doubt natural ones in the sense that the families included 

 are all more or less closely related to one another ; but they cannot 

 be regarded as family series in an equivalent sense to such 

 family series as the Adephaga, Staphylinoidea, Heteromera, or 

 Phytophaga. 



Take Kolbe's group Trichodermata. In what relation does 

 this stand to his group Malacodermata ? So close a relationship 

 do they show through the Malachiidfe, both in the larval state 

 and as imagines, that it is hardly possible to doubt that they 

 are derived directly from them. And this being the case, they 

 ought surely, as Lameere maintains, to be included with them 

 in the same family series. From a series thus constituted 

 Lameere would exclude the Derodontidse, whether rightly or not 

 I am hardly prepared to say, though I certainly should not place 

 this family between the CorynetidsB and Cleridse. The doubtful 

 origin and position of this family is one of the difficulties I find in 

 regard to Lameere's own group Malacodermata. Two other fami- 

 lies — the Byturidae and Ostomidte— placed by Kolbe and Lameere 

 in the Clavicornia, offer resemblances of such a character to the 

 Melyridae and Cleridse as to give some reason to doubt whether 

 these resemblances are merely the result of convergence. And 

 it was probably for some such reason that the authors of the 

 European Catalogue place in the single series Cantharoidea most 

 of the families which Kolbe places in his groups Malacoder- 

 mata, Trichodermata, and Clavicornia. In this series also they 

 place the Sphindidse and Cioidse, two of the families included in 

 Kolbe's group Bostrichoidea. Lameere also places these two 

 families amongst the Clavicorns, and but for this and his in- 

 clusion in it of the Derodontidas, his group Teredilia would be 

 equivalent to the Bostrichoidea of Kolbe. 



If the doubtful families could be put aside, the Teredilia or 

 Bostrichoidea left as a group consisting of the Lymexylonidre, 

 Lyctidae, Bostrichidas, Ptinidae, and Anobiidse, would be a fairly 

 natural one, having no very evident affinity with any of the 

 remaining families of Diversicornia. They are included amongst 

 the Dascillidse in the European Catalogue, altogether wrongly, 

 I think, for it seems impossible to derive them from any but the 

 most primitive of Diversicornia. It is almost certain that they 

 cannot have been derived from any other of the families included 

 in the Dascillidae. Of the groups into which it has been pro- 

 posed to split up the Diversicornia, there is none which has, in 

 my opinion, a better claim to stand than this one of the Teredilia 

 or Bostrichoidea. 



