TYPE MATERIAL OF THE SPECIES OF 



CLERID BEETLES DESCRIBED BY 



CHARLES SCHAEFFER 



By EDWARD A. CHAPIN 

 Curator, Division of Insects, U. S. National Museum 



Between 1904 and 1921, while acting as curator of entomology of 

 the Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Charles 

 Schaeffer described 45 new species of beetles of the family Cleridae 

 from America north of Mexico. Only in his 1921 paper on the genus 

 Aulicus did he designate a single specimen as type of a species. In 

 his early w'orks he selected up to six specimens to stand as types of 

 a species, and later he made no mention of the number of specimens 

 before him upon which the description of a species was based. Occa- 

 sionally it is possible for the reader to tell that one, or more than 

 one, specimen was involved, from the remarks that follow the 

 description. 



Mr. Schaeffer's type material was originally deposited in four 

 different collections : the collection of the Museum of the Brooklyn 

 Institute (33 species) ; the Schaeffer collection, in which is incor- 

 porated the Ottomar Dietz collection (7 species) ; the United States 

 National Museum (4 species) ; and the H. F. Wickham collection 

 (i species). All these collections are now in the National Museum 

 and therefore all, or almost all, the type material is there. The writer 

 has recently studied all this material and has designated lectotypes 

 for all species except where the original description and discussion 

 indicate that no more than one specimen was before the describer. 



It has not been possible to recognize the type specimen of Hyd- 

 nocera nunnemnacheri Schf. This species was described in 1908 

 from a single specimen bearing the same data as that given for the 

 type material of Hydnocera fuchsi Schf. (described on the preced- 

 ing page of the same work). In 1917 Mr. Schaeffer suppressed the 

 former as a synonym of the latter. No specimen bearing the name 

 label "Hydnocera nunnenmacheri" is to be found either in the col- 

 lection of the Brooklyn Institute or in the Schaeffer collection. It is 

 possible that upon recognizing the synonymy, Mr. Schaeffer returned 

 the type of H. nunnenmacheri, minus its distinguishing label, to the 

 type series oi H. fuchsi. 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. Ill, NO. 4 



