276 Maine A-^elcultural Experiment Station. 1917. 



and the original genus has been spht up into many smaller ones, 

 so that Altica as we regard it today includes only, a small portion 

 of the species agreeing with Geoffroy's original description, 

 which quite closely approximates our present conception of the 

 tribe Alticini. 



Geoffroy's (1762) discussion of the alticines is very interesting, and 

 a translation, as literal as possible, follows: "To jump actively in the 

 air with the agility of fleas is one of the peculiarities of the insects of 

 this genus, a character which has given them the Latin name of Altica, 

 or in French sauteurs, in place of the name Mordelles under which they 

 have been described by some recent writers. We have reserved this 

 latter name for some insects which constitute a different genus from 

 this, although the two have been confused. 



"To accomplish this active and considerable jump, nature has made 

 the hind legs of the altise larger and stronger than the others. Especially 

 the femora of these legs are remarkable. In almost all of these • insects 

 they are disproportionately large and often almost spherical, a character 

 which makes them walk badly and slowly; but these great femora also 

 enclose sufficiently strong muscles to execute such a violent movement 

 as that which these animals make in leaping. We have drawn the char- 

 acter of the genus from the large femora and from the form of the 

 atnennae which are quite long and of the same diameter throughout. 

 The altises are all quite small. They are found in great quantities on 

 potherbs, especially in the spring. They riddle and consume them. I 

 have also found on these same plants numbers of small larvae, which 

 may well be those of these altises, a thing which I do not dare affirm as 

 I have not followed their metamorphoses." 



There are 3 points which should be noted in conection with 

 the paragraphs just quoted. First, the date which is usually 

 assigned for the erection of the genus Altica is 1764; however, 

 this is an error. The original date of publication of the Histoire 

 d'insects by Geoff roy was in 1762, and the 1764 edition was a 

 reprint. (The writer has had access only to the latter edition, 

 and the page references given in this paper all refer to that 

 printing, but as all of the page references to the 1762 edition 

 agree with the pages as here given, it is probable that the pagi- 

 nation of the 2 is identical ; such also is the inference one would 

 draw from Hagen's Bibliotheca Entomologica. ) 



In the second place, Geoffroy proposed Altica to take the 

 place of Mordella Linnaeus (p. 244). But Geoffroy was mis- 

 taken in stating that Linnaeus placed the flea-beetles in the genus 

 Mordella. In the 1758 edition of the Systema naturae which 

 has been constituted the standard from which binomial nomen- 

 clature dates, the flea-beetles were put in the genus Chrysomela 



