II. — Coleopterological Notices. 

 III. 



BY THOS. L. CASEY. 

 Read October 5, 1891. 



The most important contribution presented in the following paper, 

 at least from a systematic standpoint, is a review of the Cistelidse 

 of the United States, but I feel only too fully that the discussion 

 of the species of a local fauna, however complete and well intended 

 it may be, can count but scarcely more than as a letter in the alpha- 

 bet of a general monograph. In the absence of representatives from 

 other parts of the earth, we labor to a great extent blindly in the 

 delimitation of the higher groups, and in selecting proper structural- 

 characters for the differentiation of the genera. 



For various reasons, however, the accumulation of the necessary 

 material for a general revision of any family of Coleoptera, is now 

 an exceedingly difficult matter, and this difficulty is, with the present 

 system of museum management throughout the world, a constantly 

 increasing one. Whether or not we are to have any more epoch- 

 making monographs, is becoming largely a question for the museums 

 to decide, for it is here that material is principally accumulating. 



These reflections call to mind another feature of the case, in which 

 this restrictive policy of the museums is to a great degree embar- 

 rassing, and which concerns us on this side of the Atlantic more 

 particularly — I refer to the American types of Mannerheim, Maklin, 

 Eschscholtz, and Motschulsl^y. These are now reposing in extreme 

 security within some almost inaccessible European museums, where 

 they are practically never disturbed, but if transferred to an Ameri- 

 can museum where they could at least be occasionally examined by 

 our working entomologists, it would be a vast aid to us and would 

 be a loss scarcely at all appreciable to them. I go so far as to say 

 that all satisfactory study on our part in certain directions is com- 

 pletely checked, because of the absence of these types ; from an 

 Annals N. Y. Acad. Sci., VI, Nov. 1891.— 2 



