No. 11. New Miocene Coleoptera from Florissant. 

 BY H. F. WICKHAM. 



THE very rich Coleopterous fauna of the Florissant shales was first 

 studied by Dr. S. H. Scudder. He monographed the Rhynchophora 

 as long ago as 1893 and seven years later published descriptions of 

 the Adephaga and Clavicornia, with a few scattering members of 

 other groups, expressing at the time his hope of completing the history 

 at some later date. Illness and death intervened to prevent the fulfil- 

 ment of this hope and general interest in the subject was so small that, 

 with the exception of the description of half a dozen species by Cock- 

 erell and Beutenmueller, no more of the beetles were characterized 

 for nearly a decade. Meanwhile several expeditions to the field had 

 been made by various parties under Professor Cockerell which proved 

 so productive that, upon the Coleoptera being submitted to me for 

 examination, I was led to undertake a study not only of this material 

 but also of that in the United States National Museum and the 

 Princeton Geological Museum in the attempt to make the mass of 

 specimens available for comparative statistical research in palaeontol- 

 ogy. Later, I was able to make two trips to Florissant and to secure 

 many additional species, especially those of small size. The combined 

 results, so far as published, allowed my description of 172 new forms, 

 which, with the 210 already made known by Scudder and the 6 de- 

 scribed by Cockerell and Beutenmueller, raised the total number of 

 species from these shales to 388. The present paper includes 86 

 novelties, while another, now in press, adds 20 more, thus giving a 

 known fauna of 494 Coleoptera from this one locality. Perhaps sixty 

 or eighty more remain in my hands for study and it is hoped that the 

 investigation may be completed within a reasonable time. When the 

 descriptive work is finished and the check list compiled, we shall have 

 a basis for detailed comparisons with ancient and modern faunae 

 sufficiently extensive to promise a fair degree of accuracy in our con- 

 clusions. 



In this paper, I have confined myself, as far as descriptive work is 

 concerned, to material from the S. H. Scudder collections, now the 

 property of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. This is very rich 



