EXPLANATION OF SEQUENCE OF FAMILIES 



American students of Coleoptera have been accustomed for 35 

 years to the Leconte system of classification, first proposed by Dr. 

 Leconte in 1861,^ and completed by him and Dr. Horn in 1883.^ This 

 system was followed in the Henshaw Check List in 1885, in Smith's 

 " List of the Insects of New Jersey," in Blatchley's " Beetles of Indiana " 

 and in many other books and papers ; no doubt a great many collections, 

 pubUc and private, are also arranged in accordance with its sequence of 

 families, tribes and genera. 



Meanwhile the Leconte system has been under investigation here 

 and in Em-ope and each investigator has proposed some alleged improve- 

 ment. Some of these improvements have been accepted as such by 

 subsequent authors, some have been the subject of more or less dispute. 

 All, as far as a great part of American hterature indicates, have been 

 practically disregarded here, where Dr. Leconte's system has apparently 

 been treated by many coleopterists as a finality, to be serenely followed 

 despite all criticism. 



Whether this course, undoubtedly convenient, should be continued 

 in this Check List, or some more recent system should be adopted as 

 the basis of its arrangement, has caused me to compare carefully the 

 changes proposed by Sharp, Lameere, Kolbe, Ganglbauer, Gahan, 

 Verhoeff and Sharp and Muir. Unfortunately such comparison discloses 

 a lack of agreement on many points between these critics of Leconte. 

 If, therefore, any departm-e from Leconte's system be made, it must be 

 after study of the conflicting arguments that have been brought forward 

 and by personal decision as to then- respective merits. 



Since these arguments relate principally to questions of phylogeny, 

 necessarily a matter of theory and deduction, though larval studies also 

 play an important part, I have found such decision difficult to reach 

 and present the results that follow with much fear that many errors are 

 included, but with the hope that they may be useful in making better 

 known the work of recent investigators of the classification. 



' Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Prepared for the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion by John L. Leconte, M. D., Part 1. Washington: May, 1861-March, 1862. 



^ Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Prepared for the Smithsonian Institution 

 by John L. Leconte and George H. Horn. Washington, 1883. 



