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XV. A Contribution to the Classification of the Coleo- 

 pterous familjj Dynastidse. By Gilbert J. 

 Arrow, F.E.S. 



[Read March -Itli, 1908.] 



The Dynastidse flourish most in the New World, they are 

 fairly well represented in Australia, but appear to be 

 least numerous in the Oriental Region and particularly 

 upon the Continent of Asia. As those which do occur are 

 generally abundant and attract attention by their forms 

 and size it is strange that this sufficiently small group has 

 been little studied as regards classification. The American 

 species by their numbers and difficulty rather repel 

 systematic workers, and the Australian and African repre- 

 sentatives have received considerable attention in recent 

 times, but the Asiatic species have been neglected and 

 their classification is in considerable confusion, rendered 

 greater by the fact that some of the old genera in which 

 they are included have been divided and reconstituted 

 as regards species from other regions. The present paper, 

 although it contains descriptions and synonymical notes 

 based upon specimens in the British Museum from all 

 parts of the world, deals more especially with Oriental 

 representatives of the family. All the new species described 

 here are represented in the British Museum collection. 



The Oriental species at present standing in the genus 

 Iletcroiiijehus are in urgent need of revision. Many 

 African species formerly placed in the genus have been 

 formed into new genera by Messrs. Kolbe and Peringuey, 

 and those that remain from tliat region form a tairly 

 homogeneous series, but this is by no means the case with 

 the Oriental species. One of the most distinctive features 

 of the genus is the peculiar smoothness of the pronotum, 

 which is without trace of elevation or depression behind 

 the head and entirely, or almost entirely, without punc- 

 turation. This characteristic is accompanied by a form 

 which is not highly convex, by the presence of a pair of 

 stridulating files upon the propygidium, and, in the male, 

 by the thickening of the anterior tarsus and enlarge- 

 ment of its inner claw, which has a very broad basal 



TRA.NS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1908. — PART II. (^SEFF.) 21 



