189 

 SOME NEW WEST INDIAN SPECIES OF THE MELOLONTHID 



GENUS LACHNOSTERNA. 

 By Gilbert J. Arrow. 



Twenty-four West Indian species of this genus were enumerated in Messrs. Leng 

 and Mutckler's list of 1914, in addition to whick four species from Porto Rico have 

 since been named by Mr. Eugene Smyth (Journ. Dept. Agric. Porto Rico, i, 1917). 

 Two other species have been assigned to the genus Phytalus, which is distinguished 

 from Lachnostema solely by the claw-tooth making an acute instead of a wide angle 

 with the tip. As H. W. Bates found in his attempt to distribute the Central 

 American species, it is impossible to make this the basis of a natural division, 

 especially as in certain species (as in L. dilermna here described) it is confined to the 

 male. 



The genus Phytalus was constituted by Erichson in 1847 for American and 

 Oriental species, but was restricted to the former by Blanchard in 1850. Blanchard 

 formed for Oriental representatives a new genus Brahmina, but without comparing 

 the characters of the two. Brenske in 1892 confirmed this geographical division 

 and set forth characters by which he maintained that a purely American genus 

 Phytalus could be separated from the Eastern genera Brahmina, Holotrichia and 

 others. These characters he defined as — [a) cleft claws, the inner branch being 

 as long as or longer than the outer ; (6) elongate antennal club in the male ; 

 (c) hollowed abdomen in the male ; the opposite conditions denoting the Oriental 

 genus Brahmina. 



But Brenske's statement of the case really points to the opposite conclusion to 

 that drawn by him, for the application of his tests relegates the West Indian species 

 Phytalus smithi, Arrow, and the Mexican P. omiltemus, Bates, to the genus Brahmina, 

 while the Mexican P. jplatyrrhinus, Bates, combines the characters of the two genera, 

 the inner branch of the claw being much shorter than the outer. As just mentioned, 

 however, the cleft claw may be only a feature of the male sex, so that no single 

 character has yet been found which is sufficient for the recognition of the female 

 Phytalus, and those supposed to characterise the male are quite at variance with 

 the present conception of the genus. In my opinion Phytalus, Brahmiiia and 

 Holotrichia are quite undefinable, and I can see no alternative to treating them as 

 one with Lachnostema. 



In recent American works on this group of beetles the generic name Phyllophaga 

 has been adopted. This name was introduced by Harris in 1826, eleven years 

 earlier than the date of the characterisation by Hope of Holotrichia and Lachnostema. 

 It is however a nomen nudum, accompanied by no description, and is therefore 

 upon the same footing as the numerous Catalogue names printed by dealers and 

 others, to which obviously no scientific value can be attached. 



Including the five here described, thirty-five species of this genus are now known 

 from the West Indian Islands, and many of them are probably of economic 

 importance. 

 (713) Wt.P2/154. 1,000. 12.20. B.<kF.,Ltd< Gd.11/14 a 



