TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



VOLUME XXXV. 



REVISION OF THE SPECIES OF DIPLOTAXIS 

 OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BY H. C. FALL. 



The genus Diplotaxis was erected by Kirby in 1840, tristis 

 being the type species. Only three species of our fauna de- 

 scribed by earlier authors are referable to the genus, viz. : 

 the Mololontha liberta of Germar (1S23), and the M. sordida 

 and M. frondicola of Say (1825). A little later Blanchard 

 (1850) and Burmeister (1855) described a considerable num- 

 ber of species from both the United States and Mexico, some 

 of them being identical with previously described forms. In 

 1856 LeConte published his Synopsis of the Melolonthidae of 

 the United States, in which twenty-nine species are recognized, 

 twenty-three of which are described as new, while five of the 

 species of Blanchard and Burmeister are listed as unrecognized. 

 This paper still furnishes the basis for the arrangement of 

 species in our present lists, as, aside from some isolated de- 

 scriptions, the genus has received no attention from our 

 systematists of later years. That such attention is much 

 needed has for some time been apparent, for with the gradual 

 accumulation of material from the West, especially from our 

 Southwestern border region, the new forms have become as 

 numerous as those previously described, and the total number 

 of species does not fall far short of being as great as in 

 Lachno sterna. 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. XXXV. (1) JANUARY, 1909. 



