in the Catalogue of British Coleoptera. 331 



long, all five-jointed." According to my opinion it is an insult to 

 science to establish a genus of Aleocharce by such a diagnosis, 

 which is so vague that it will apply to almost any Slaphylinide, 

 and which does not afford the slightest character by which the 

 genus may be distinguished. Nevertheless Kraatz might have 

 adopted the name, and probably would have done so, if it could 

 have been said that the genus Ischnopoda in reality corresponds 

 with Chilopora; but in Stephens' work it is composed of seven 

 $pecies, the first and last of which (specifically identical) alone 

 belong to Chilopora ; the second and third are Tachyusce, the 

 sixth is a Homalota, and the fourth and fifth appear to be no 

 longer extant, as no mention whatever is made of them in Mr. 

 Waterhouse's Catalogue (but they were certainly not Chiloporai). 

 Can it, under these circumstances, be said that the genus 

 Ischnopoda, which is not characterized at all, and which is an 

 assemblage of species belonging to at least three different genera, 

 is identical with Chilopora, merely because the first species happens 

 to belong to it?" 



In the last sentence the identity of the Ischnopoda longitarsis of 

 Stephens with that of Chilopora longitarsis of Kraatz is admitted 

 for the first time. With regard to the fourth and fifth species 

 comprised in the genus Ischnopoda by Stephens, and which are 

 said to be unaccounted for, the remark applies to the fourth only; 

 the original description in that case is from an insect in a collec- 

 tion of which I can learn no tidings. The fifth species, nificrus* 

 will be found in the synonyms of Homalota gregaria. The eighth 

 species was appaiently (like the fourth) unknown to Stephens, 

 and if we deduct these two, the remaining species, as Dr. Schaura 

 correctly states, belong to three different genera, viz., Chilopora, 

 Kraatz {=Calodera, p. of Erichson), Tachyusa, Er., and Homalota, 

 Er. The genus Ischnopoda then, containing no less than three 

 distinct generic forms, could not be regarded as equal to the 

 genus Chilopora of Kraatz, which contains only one of those 

 forms, and this constitutes, according to Dr. Schaum, the great 

 stumbling-block which could not be got over. 



Let us see how similar cases have been dealt with by Erichson 

 and Kraatz. The genus Homalota has just been mentioned, — I will 

 first take that. This genus was originally founded by Manner- 

 heim upon a single species, the Aleochara plana of Gyllenhal. 

 Erichson, supposing the species now known as H. cuspidata to 



* The true ruficrus by description ; the insect which is so named in Stephens' 

 colleclion is Isch, longitarsis. 



Z 2 



