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XIV, A Bevision of the British Species o/Homalota. By 

 David Sharp, M.B. 



[Read 5tb April, 1869.] 



Having undertaken the revision of the British species of 

 the genus Hom-alota, with a view to the completion, as 

 far as possible, of a list of the native species, I now offer 

 the results of my study in the form of detailed descrip- 

 tions of all our species. I hope thus to enable such as 

 are willing to give the necessary care to the task to de- 

 termine their specimens of this most difficult genus. 



Mr. Waterhouse's last catalogue contains eighty-nine 

 species of Eomalota ; of these, two find no place in my 

 paper, viz., H. dehiUcornis (to which a ? is attached by 

 Mr. Waterhouse), because I have found no specimen of 

 it extant ; and H. parvula, which has already been de- 

 clared by Mr. Watei'house to be a synonym of another 

 of the species of his catalogue. The present paper con- 

 tains descriptions of 157 species, of which twenty-nine 

 are considered as previously undescribed. 



The length of the descriptive part of this paper is so 

 great, that I must refer the student to the works of 

 Erichson and Kraatz for all generalities with regard to 

 the genus ; for a like reason I have limited the synonymy 

 to the quotation of the original description, and to refer- 

 ences to Erichson^s " Genera et Species Staphylinorum," 

 to Kraatz's 2nd vol. of the '^ Insecten Deutschland^s,^' 

 to Thomson's " Skandinavien's Coleoptera," and to Mr. 

 Waterhouse's catalogue. 



I must, however, say a few words as to the arrange- 

 ment I have adopted. 



In a genus containing such an inordinate number of 

 species as does the present one,* an arrangement by 

 which it shall be possible to discover the position of a 

 species without wading through an enormous number of 

 unclassified diagnoses, becomes absolutely necessary. 

 Thomson in his Skand. Col. has endeavoured to ac- 

 complish this by the division of the genus, as understood 

 by Erichson, by Kraatz, and by Lacordaire, into no less 

 than thirty distinct genera ; but the result of his attempt 

 is to much increase, instead of to diminish, the difficulty 



* Harold's catalogue gives 412 as the number of described species of 

 the geuus, and Stein's recent catalogue of the European species makes 

 their number 230. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. 1869. PART II. (mAy). I 



