APPENDIX. 



XOTES ON THE GENUS HETEROCERUS. F. 

 (Vide Vol. III. p. 384.) 



SINCE the publication of Volume III. two important papers have been 

 published on this much-neglected and very obscure genus : " The Species 

 of Heterocerus of Boreal America," by Dr. Horn (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc. 

 xvii. Ja"n. 1890), and the " Bestimmungstabelle der Heteroceren 

 Europas und der angrenzenden Gebiete," by Herr A. Kuwert (Verhand- 

 lungen der Kaiserlich-koniglichen zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschaft in 

 Wien, 1890, p. 517 et seqq). I have had some correspondence with Herr 

 Kuwert, who has kindly looked over and determined for me a number 

 of British specimens, and has sent me specimens of some of the species : 

 in his last letter he expresses great regret that he had not had more 

 British specimens before him when he wrote his paper. I have already 

 published the results of these investigations in the Entomologist's 

 Monthly Magazine (Vol. ii. (Second Series), 1891, pp. 132 and 202) ; I 

 have not had time to work the species thoroughly, nor have I had 

 sufficient material : before arriving at definite conclusions it will be 

 necessary to work at large series from various localities, with the males 

 and females distinguished as taken from the same burrows. I am by no 

 means sure that Herr Kuwert is right in several instances, and he him- 

 self, in certain cases, seems doubtful as to Kiesenwetter's determinations : 

 there is only one other small genus of British Coleoptera that presents 

 anything like the same difficulties as Heterocenif, and that is Haltica : 

 in both cases I believe that a thorough revision is required, from large 

 series, of all the European species. 



The table given in Vol. III. p. 384, will serve roughly to distinguish 

 the species which were known as British when I wrote it, but the 

 character of the presence or absence of margins on the posterior angles 

 of the thorax is often a very obscure one ; occasionally, as in the con- 

 tinental species H. obliteratus, Kies, they are present in one sex only ; 

 on this character, however, Kuwert forms two of his principal subgenera, 

 Heterocerus i. sp., in which the hind angles of the thorax are not 

 margined, and Tcenhetocerut, Kuw., in which they are margined or at 

 least show a trace of margins (Hinterecken des Halsschildes gerandet 

 oder mindestens mit Spuren von Kandung). Dr. Horn says, with regard 



