AMERICAN COLEOPTERA. 97 



REVISION OF THE PTIXID^E OF BOREAL AMERICA. 



BY H. C. FALL. 



To American students, who, in accepting the classification sanc- 

 tioned by our two great Coleopterists, Drs. LeConte and Horn, have 

 long been accustomed to include in this family the Bostrychinse and 

 Lyctina?, the above title may appear too pretentious. I fully concur 

 with the opinion, which seems to be gaining ground generally, that 

 the Bostrychinse are worthy of ranking as an independent family. 

 The Lyctinse have always been a source of trouble and many and 

 diverse have been the opinions as to their relationship. It is by no 

 means certain that their affinities are not more strongly Clavicorn 

 than Serricorn and possibly they could not better be disposed of than 

 in the manner suggested by Major Casey in his Coleopterological 

 Notices II. (Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, p. 494), 

 where reasons are given for including them in a more broadly con- 

 ceived Cucujidie. 



Removing from the Ptinidse these disturbing elements— the Bos- 

 trychinse and Lyctinse — the family is divisible into two very unequal 

 subfamilies, the Ptininse and Anobiinse, long separated by systematists 

 primarily by the difference in the point of insertion of the antenna 1 . 

 These two subfamilies approach one another in our fauna through 

 the genera Hedobia and Euerada, hitherto included among the Ptini- 

 nse, but which in the present paper are transferred to the Anobiinse, 

 with which subfamily they appear to have more in common, and 

 which because of its greater heterogeneity is less disturbed by their 

 reception. In any case the two genera are truly intermediate forms. 

 and whichever course prevails their relative position is not affected. 



The Ptininse in our fauna have never received monographic treat- 

 ment, partly, it is presumed, because of the small number of specie- 

 involved, but still more on account of the large proportion of mono- 

 typic genera — eight out of the nine named in our lists being repre- 

 sented by single species. 



The Anobiidse were made the subject of an investigation by 

 LeConte in 1865 (Proc. Acad. Sci. Phila., p. 224), and the arrange- 

 ment of genera proposed by him at that time appeals to me to lie on 

 the whole distinctly more natural than any other that has been ad- 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. XXXI. (13) MARCH. 190.",. 



