(35 ) 
DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE COLEOPTERA 
OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
EpITtED By L. PERINGUEY. 
(Read January 96, 1899.) 
Famity LATHRIDIID/4. 
By Rev. Fatuer M. J. Breton, 
Member Entom. Soc. of France, &c. 
Very little is known of the Lathridude of the South African fauna. 
Thirty years ago Motschulsky (Bullet. Soc. d. Natur. d. Moscou, 
1866, iii., and 1867, i.) described from this part of South Africa 
seven species which are partly synonymous with or local varieties 
of cosmopolitan species, and which he implies are natives of the 
Cape of Good Hope. Of these seven species two belong to the 
genus Hicmus, four to the genus Corticaria, and one is a Melar- 
ophthalma. 
Thanks to the courtesy and generosity of Mons. A. Ratftfray, 
Consul-General for France at the Cape, and Mr. L. Péringuey, 
Assistant Director of the South African Museum of Natural History 
of Cape Town, I have been able to examine some examples of the 
South African species of this interesting but too much neglected 
family of Coleoptera, and, at the expressed desire of Mr. Péringuey, 
I now venture to give the result of my investigations, in the hope 
that this, perforce, incomplete descriptive catalogue of the family 
Lathridude may induce collectors in South Africa to devote special 
attention to the discovery of new forms. 
Thus far seven genera and eighteen species are known to occur in 
South Africa. Only one species is recorded from Natal; the others— 
ten of which, however, may be considered as peculiar to the South 
African region—have been captured in a few places in the Cape 
Colony, mostly in or near Cape Town. 
Several of the insects included in this family are either myrme- 
cophilous, or live in ants’ nests; the greater part, however, dwell 
under stones, especially in slightly moist places, under bark of trees, 
or in decaying vegetation or vegetable refuse and dead leaves. 
