112 MISCELLANEOUS FOREST INSECTS. 



phia, has generously afforded him a hke privilege with the Horn col- 

 lection, and Mr. Edmund Reitter, of Paskau, Austria, has sent him 

 representatives ol some of the European species. 



In this connection the author desires to express his appreciation of 

 the facilities offered by Mr. E. A. Schwarz, of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, of the valuable assistance rendered by him in the study of the 

 material in the U. S. National Museum, and of his helpful advice in the 

 systematic work, and by Dr. A. D. Hopkins in allowing unlimited use 

 of the large series of specimens and notes of the forest insect collec- 

 tion of the Bureau of Entomology. 



HISTORY. 



The genus Lyctus and allied genera constitute a group which has 

 always been a source of perplexity to systematists, and the opinions 

 as to their relationship have been almost as many and varied as the 

 number of writers'who have ventured them, as may in a general way 

 be gained from the following summary: 



The first reference to an insect belonging to the present family 

 Lyctidfe was made by Geoffroy (1762), whose description reads thus: 



Dermestes oblongus fuscus, elylris striatis. Le dermeste levrier k slries. 



The next reference is by Goeze (1777), who described the same 

 insect as Dermestes linearis. In 1783 Herbst again described and 

 figured the species as Dermestoides unvpunctatus. Olivier, first in 1 790, 

 and again in 1792, describes it as Ips ohlonga and gives a very good 

 figure of it. Fabricius (1792) erected the genus Lyctus and referred 

 to it 13 species, only one of which, L.canaliculatus Fabricius {linearis 

 Goeze), belongs to the genus as now recognized. L. linearis (Goeze) 

 is therefore the type of the genus. Herbst (1793) erected the genus 

 Bitoma, to which he referred his Dermestoides unipunctatus, together 

 with three other species. Latreille (1803) placed Lyctus, together 

 with BostricTius and several other genera, in the family Xylophages, 

 and in 1807 under the Bostrichini. In 1830 Stephens described 

 another species, hrunneus, and erected for it the genus Xylotrogus, 

 and referred both this genus and Lyctus to the Engidse, to which 

 family Melsheimer (1844) also referred several new species of Lyctus 

 and Xylotrogus (Trogoxylon) described by him. Wollaston (1854), 

 after comparison and dissection, considered Xylotrogus as synony- 

 mous with Lyctus and placed it in the Colydiadte. Lacordaire (1857) 

 considered Lyctus, including Xylotrogus Stephens, under the Cissides, 

 but remarked that the forms are in many ways aberrant and not well 

 placed there, especially because of the 5-segmented tarsi. He placed 

 (Xylotrogus) Trogoxylon j)arallelopipedus Melsheimer in Pycnomerus 

 under the Colydiidfe. ]\lellie (1848), in his monograph of the old 

 genus Cis, does not mention Lyctus. Thomson (1863), in his sequence 



