COLEOPTERA 



Fam. NITIDULIDAE. 



435 



This is a comparatively small family, the Munich Catalogue of Coleoptera enume- 

 rating somewhat less than 800 species for all the world. We have recognised 143 species 

 as occurring in our Fauna. This is a very remarkable development for a small group 

 of Islands, and the family is undoubtedly one of the more important of the constituents 

 of the Hawaiian Coleopterous fauna. Of the 143 species 138 are believed to be pre- 

 cinctive, that is found nowhere else. The 138 precinctive species belong, with a single 

 exception to a group that until now has been included in the widely distributed genus 

 Brachypephis\ I have however decided to abandon the application of this name to any 

 of the Hawaiian forms, as none of them appear to me to be very closely allied to the 

 Australian forms for which Erichson established the genus Brachypephis in the year 

 1842. Hence we have distributed these 138 species in 13 genera none of which so far 

 as we know occur elsewhere. Of the five introduced, or non-precinctive species, four 

 belong to the genus Caipophihis, many members of which live in food-stuffs, and this is 

 I believe the case with the Carpophili of Hawaii. The fifth non-precinctive form is an 

 Eastern species which has been probably introduced with fruit or other food-stuffs. It 

 should be mentioned that this species has a congener which is at present precinctive but 

 may prove to occur elsewhere. Neither this genus Hapto)uits nor CarpopJiilus is allied 

 to the Brachypeplus division, and these non-precinctive forms throw no light on the 

 origin of the precinctive forms. 



The members of this family frequent the oozing sap of trees or live on decaying 

 vegetable and animal matter, and are frequently found in flowers. So far as is known 

 the Hawaiian species are not exceptional in these respects. The most remarkable point 

 that has been discovered about them is the existence of flightless forms. I am not 

 acquainted with flightless Nitidulidae in other parts of the world, but in Hawaii they 

 appear to be fairly numerous, nine species exhibiting the character. These nine species 

 we have placed in four distinct genera. The wings are present in all these forms but 

 are so much reduced as to be useless for flight. The extent of the reduction appears to 

 be subject to little or no variation within specific limits, but it is different according to the 

 species, and in the genera Cyrtostolus (Plate XIII. fig. 2\d) and Apetinus the wings 

 are much larger than they are in other three flightless genera (Plate XIII. fig. 26, 

 wing oi Apetasiymis). In Nesapterns they are extremely minute. 



' There is considerable doubt as to the propriety of retaining the name Brachypeplus in Coleoj)tera. 

 Murray in his monograph of Nitidulidae states that the name is preoccupied in Hymenoptera, but without 

 giving particulars. I believe he was mistaken as I have not been able to trace any Brachypeplus in 

 Hymenoptera. Whether the Brachypeplus of Charpentier, Orthoptera, fasc. 9, may be anterior to the name 

 in use in Coleoptera I need not discuss. 



