1915] Lovell — Origin oj Anthophily among the Colcoptcra Q9 



it may be excessively rare, e. g., a single specimen of JNIegapenthes 

 rogersii was found on the flowers of Viburnum alnifolhim in Maine 

 and while this beetle has been reported from Canada and the south- 

 ern shore of Lake Superior this is the only known record of its 

 occurrence in New England. Where genera are represented in the 

 list by a single species, if this form is very common it will be found 

 recorded from more than one locality, as Chauliognathus penn- 

 sylvanicus and Epicauta pennsylvanica. The severe climatic 

 and edaphic conditions in southern Maine, where the hills are 

 covered with coarse glacial debris and the valleys with a subsoil of 

 heavy clay, and sudden extremes in temperature and open winters 

 prevail, are unfavorable to a rich insect fauna; and account for the 

 larger number of anthophilous species collected in Massachusetts. 

 The observations of Dr. Banks in Virginia would indicate that as 

 we proceed southward the number of anthophilous Coleoptera 

 would progressively increase. 



Loew has divided the anthophilous Coleoptera, according to 

 their adaptations as flower visitors, into three groups termed by 

 him hemipterous, allotropous and dystropous. The hemipterous 

 beetles are partially adapted to visiting flowers, as the genera 

 Chauliognathus, Gnathium, and Nemognatha. The allotropous 

 species, which include the greater number of anthophilous Cole- 

 optera, are of little value in pollination, and structural modifications 

 for procuring nectar are indistinct or absent. This group is still 

 further subdivided according to the food habits of the respective 

 families both in the larval and adult stages. The dystropous 

 beetles are detrimental or destructive to flowers, as the Chry- 

 somelidae, Rhyncophora, and the iNIelolonthinse (a subfamily of the 

 Scarabseidae) . While this arrangement is helpful in estimating 

 the value of the Coleoptera in pollination we shall not follow it in 

 the present paper; but shall take up the different anthophilous 

 families in the order of their historical development. The sar- 

 cophagous Coleoptera, or where saprophagous living chiefly on 

 decaying or dried animal substances, are certainly more primitive 

 than the phytophagous families which feed on wood, sap, leaves 

 and other vegetable matter; while in this second group the xylo- 

 phagous families are apparently older than those living exclusively 

 on foliage or a floral diet. In reviewing the rise of the anthophilous 

 habit we shall consider, first, isolated anthophilous genera in 



