4 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



life on the old lake shore, but it will probably be necessary to 

 modify his conclusions regarding relative prevalence of certain 

 families. The remarkable preponderance of Rhynchophora which 

 he noted seems well sustained in recent collections, and the de- 

 velopment of the Rhynchitidge, a family of this series, is even 

 more pronounced than he had judged. The Rhynchophora were 

 undoubtedly a dominant type of beetle during the Miocene times. 

 None of the other groups approach them in richness of species 

 or individuals. They had already developed specialized rostral 

 and scale structures, as shown by the remains from Florissant. 

 It is interesting to note that the so-called seed weevils, the 

 Bruchidffi, had also a strikingly strong representation in this re- 

 gion, seven species being described in the present paper, and an- 

 other, of a more specialized type, being figured and described in 

 manuscript. These seven species show varying modifications of 

 the antenna^ and indicate that the femoral dentation so well de- 

 veloped in recent forms had already made some progress in the 

 Tertiary. The wood boring Bostrychids, Protapate and Xylo- 

 biops are also well along in development of the peculiar sculpture 

 of the group to which they belong. 



I must confess that I have not been able to find the affinities 

 with the Central American fauna that Dr. Scudder seemed to 

 suspect. Time after time, I have compared the species of certain 

 genera with their ^Mexican or Central American representatives, 

 but have nearly always found them more closely related to those 

 of the United States. Even the European fauna does not seem 

 to have been any more closely approximated than our own, and 

 when I have been unable to assign a beetle to one of our native 

 genera it has almost always been necessary to erect a new genus 

 for its accommodation. The case of Paussopsis, as showing a pos- 

 sible striking affinity to the African or European fauna is not so 

 convincing as it might be. I am not at all sure that this beetle 

 l^elongs to the Paussida*, though for the present I follow Pro- 

 fessor Cockerell in the assumption that it does. 



Such characters as the expanded tarsi of the males in Cara- 

 bidae, Staphylinidae and water beetles had already made their 

 appearance in the Tertiary forms. Bizarre structures of any 

 description are somewhat conspicuously lacking. I do not see 

 that there is any well marked difference in the average size of 



