﻿MELOLONTHID^] OF THE UNITED STATES. 235 



1. E. quercus, cylindrica, testaceo-rufa, sericeo-pruinosa, capite thoraceque saturatioribus, illo fortiter 



haud dense punctato, clypeo anguste marginato, eniarginato, thorace parce punctata, elytris parcius 

 fortiter punctatis subeostatis, pygidio et propygidio subtilius punctatis, peetore parum pubeseente. 

 Long. -58 — -63. 



Melolontha quercus Knoch, Neue Beytr. 72, tab. 1, fig. 26. 



Melolontha fervida\ Illiger, ed. Oliv. 2, 44, (fide Burmeister.) 



Ancylonycha quercus Burm. Lamell. 2, 2d, 340. 



Middle and Southern States. The club of the antennae of the male is as long as 

 the stem. 



2. E. volvula, cylindrica, rufo-testacea nitida, capite fuscescente minus dense punctato, clypeo emar- 



ginato, thorace sat dense, elytris fortius punctatis haud costatis, pygidio parce subtiliter punctato, 

 peetore vix pubeseente. Long. -5. 

 One female, New York, Mr. Guex. Much smaller than the preceding, and very 

 different by the shining and more punctured body. 



Lachnosterna Hope. 



This genus commonly appears under the name Ancylonycha, and in the Catalogue 

 of the Described Coleoptera of the United States is called Phyllophaga. After care- 

 fully examining the history of each of these names, I am convinced that a regard for 

 the purity of nomenclature requires that they should be rejected, and the name pro- 

 posed by Hope in 1837, (Coleopterist's Manual, 1, 99) should be'restored. 



The name Ancylonycha, the one best known, is used for the first time by Dejean, 

 in the Catalogue of his Collection printed in 1833, but the characters were first pub- 

 lished by Blanchard, in 1845, and the name was subsequently adopted by Erichson, 

 Lacordaire, Burmeister, and all the leading entomologists of Europe. 



Misled by a note in the first edition of Harris' Insects of Massachusetts Injurious to 

 Vegetation, (p. 30,) the name Phyllophaga was adopted by Mr. Haldeman and my- 

 self in the Melsheimer Catalogue, as above stated, but by the kindness of a friend I 

 have recently procured a transcript from the Massachusetts Agricultural repository 

 cited by Harris, and find that the name, although proposed as early as 1826, is not 

 accompanied by any description.* 



* For the convenience of future students, I reprint the passage in which the name is proposed. Vide Mass. 

 Agricult. Repository, vol. x. p. 6, ("note.) 



' The genus Melolontha as constituted by Fabricius contains a vast number of species, differing greatly in ex- 

 ternal appearance, and somewhat in modes of life. Fabricius describes 149 species, and Schonherr, after separat- 

 ing those which constitute the modern genera Anisonyx, Glaphyrus, Arnphicoma, Rutela, and Hoplia, enumerates 

 226 species of Melolontha, to which additions are constantly making from the discovery of new species. Hence 

 the genus requires further subdivision. The bases of these subgenera have been pointed out by Latreille, Knoch 5 

 and Schonherr, and some have already been established. I would restrict the name of Melolontha to those 

 species which have more than three lamellae to the club of the antenna?, like the vulgaris of Europe, and of which 

 we have an indigenous example in the M. decimlineata, of Say, (M. occidentalis Herbst?). Our common species 

 qnercina, hirsuta, hirticula, balia, and some others might receive the generic name, Phyllophaga. M. vesperiina 



