114 MISCELLANEOUS FOREST INSECTS. 



Psoinse, Polycaoninae, Dinoderinse, and Bostrychinae, but made no 

 mention of Lyctus. Kolbe (1901 ) has retained the Lyctidse as a family 

 and placed it in his Ileterorrhabden under tlie suborder Heterophaga; 

 and Ganglbauer (1903) placed the family between the Anobiidse and 

 Sphindidae in his Diversicornia under the suborder Polyphaga. 

 Reitter, in 1906, has the famil}^ between the Bostrychidse and the 

 Anobiidse. 



Without doubt the family Lyctidse is a valid one, its members 

 possessing characters which will not readily admit of their being 

 placed in any other family. Tlie family Ptinidse of Le Conte and 

 Horn is a composite one, and the subfamilies Ptininae, Anobiinse, 

 Bostrichinaj, and Lyctinse are deserving of family rank and in fact 

 have already been so treated by European coleopterists. Wliile it 

 is not intended to treat extensively on the exact position of the 

 Lyctidae, it may be said that the family is apparently most closely 

 allied to the Bostrychidae, especially by the pentamerous tarsi with 

 the first segment very short, the method and point of insertion of 

 the antennae, and the only too well-known destructive liabits of the 

 larvae, which bore into the solid wood. The larva possesses three pairs 

 of well-developed prothoracic legs, and in form and structure is 

 scarcely to be distinguished from the bostrychid larva, but is totally 

 different from any scolytid larva to which it has been likened, the 

 resemblance being scarcely even superficial. The mouthparts of the 

 adult Lyctus are very similar to those of Dinoderus, especially in the 

 structure of the labium, maxillae, and the broad nientum. The 

 family has very little in common with the Cucujidae. As pointed 

 out above, the larva is of a wholly different character in form and 

 habits, and the adults, while agreeing in one character or another 

 with those found in certain other genera included by Colonel Casey in 

 his broadly conceived Cucujidae, have probably derived those char- 

 acters independently of any real connection with them. The family 

 seems best placed as in the latest (1906) edition of the Catalogus 

 Coleopterorum Europae, i. e., immediately after the Bostrychidae and 

 preceding the Ptinidae. 



THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF THE FAMILY LYCTID^. 



Mentum large, transverse, corneous; glossa coriaceous, ciliated; 

 palpi with 3 flexible segments. 



Maxillse not exposed at base; galea subchitinous, densely ciliate at 

 apex, more strongly chitinized at base; lacinia subchitinous, fringed 

 with long ciliae; palpi moderately short, with four rather stout 

 segments. 



Antennx at the sides of the head beneath the produced frontal 

 angles and before the eyes, eleven-segmented, clavate, the club 

 two-segmented and without porous sensitive areas. 



