No. 12.— The Fossil Elateridae of Florissant. 
By H. F. Wickuam. 
ELATERID beetles are fairly common as fossils. Some of the earli- 
est Coleoptera known, occurring in the Triassic rocks, had the form 
of an Elater more or less sketched out but, according to Handlirsch, 
who has seen the specimens, none of them displayed characters which 
would allow them to be placed in the modern family with any cer- 
tainty. Again, in the Liassic beds, the elateriform Coleoptera ap- 
peared, this time in rather greater abundance, but even yet they seem 
to present no evidence of belonging to the family in a proper sense. 
The lithographic chalk of Jurassic times has furnished insects which 
have even been referred to the recent genus Elater but here, as before, 
Handlirsch believes that the closeness of relationship has been over- 
estimated, though he states that his Jurassic genus Malmelater 
belongs at any rate to the Elateridae. This seems to be the earliest 
well-supported record of the appearance of the family in geologic time. 
Following the Jurassic, we have a period of immense duration in 
which no large deposits of Coleoptera were made or, if they exist, 
none have been discovered. No more Elateridae are recorded until 
after the opening of the Tertiary, when they begin to be at least 
moderately numerous. Menge is said to have had 130 specimens 
from the Amber fauna. In the later deposits of Oeningen and other 
European Miocene localities they seem to be quite abundant, Heer 
having described many, some in fine preservation. By this time they 
had become so much like our modern forms that generic identity 
frequently seems quite well established though one cannot feel sure 
that some important character may not have been carried away with 
a missing member. ‘Tarsal lobes and claw-teeth scarcely ever remain 
intact, the mesosternum is often too distorted to study and in many 
instances it is impossible to make out the limits of the metacoxal 
plates which play-so large a part in the classifications of systematists. 
In the way of giving at a glance the published standing of Elateri- 
dae in Tertiary strata, the following outline, compiled mostly from 
Handlirsch and with his assignment of the age of each deposit, may 
be useful. The records are given by localities in preference to arrange- 
ment by generic sequence. 
