10 Introduction 



lies, except in Adephagous forms, his theory being that as the Pro- 

 tocoleopteron arose from Protoblattoidea prior to the Triassic, and the 

 Protoadephagon dui-ing Triassic, so did the Protopolyphagon arise 

 and divide during Liassic. 



In the Jurassic fossils, plate 45, more progress was made; among 

 the Adephaga, water beetles like Dytiscus, and Carabids like Calosoma, 

 are plainly seen with their characteristic legs ; but among the Polj^shaga 

 it is still hard to place the species in existing families. The Cretaceous 

 fossils are so few and imperfect that nothing can be said of them; but 

 in the Tertiary fossils from Oeningen in Baden, and from Florissant in 

 Colorado, the extraordinary numbers that have been found and their 

 comparatively complete preservation have permitted of referring them 

 not only to living families, but even genera in those families. Of the 

 existing families very nearly all are now known among Tertiary fossils. 

 Finally, in Quaternary fossils, in peat, and in interglacial deposits, it 

 becomes a question as to their difference from living species. 



To me it seems strange that Handlirsch, after establishing by 

 fossil evidence the appearance of the Serricom series, Sternoxia and 

 Malacodermata, before any other polyphagous series, should in his 

 "stammbaum" place Sternoxia after the Clavicornia. In his catalogue 

 of Tertiary fossils, p. 743, he places them before the Clavicornia, and 

 more correctly in my view. 



As intimated above, he was possibly influenced by Ganglbauer and 

 considerations of internal structures to which both authors attach gi-eat 

 importance. At any rate his final conclusions are very much like Gangl- 

 bauer's and are based upon the conception of the sub-order Ade- 

 phaga, having first become divided from other Coleoptera, which later 

 became successively broken up into series as follows: Staphylinifor- 

 mia, Palpicornia, Malacodermata, Clavicornia, Brachymera, Serricornia 

 ( = Dascilloidea) , Sternoxia, Teredilia, Heteromera, Phytophaga, Rhyn- 

 chophora, Lamellicornia, of which the last named were the last to be 

 evolved from the protopolyphagon. It is in the division of Ganglbauer's 

 Diversicornia into at least ten series that the greatest difference between 

 the two authors appears; Dr. Sharp, in a letter, insists upon even many 

 more lines of descent, and Dr. Gahan, as already stated, finds serious 

 difficulty in accepting the groups proposed by Kolbe and Lameere. 

 All recently expressed opinions, in short, tend towards the recognition 

 of more numerous groups. 



H. J. Kolbe, a Gennan author of high standing, has on the con- 

 trary attacked the Ganglbauer system and has proposed one that is 



