ON BRITISH CISSID BEETLES. 



83 



6. — 1. The Coleoptera of the Family Cissidse found in 

 Britain, with Descriptions of two new Species. — 

 2. A new Species of the Coleopteran genus Cryptor- 

 rhynchus Illiger. By C. J. C. Pool, Assistant Curator 

 Caird Insect House *. 



[Received February 6, 1917 : Read February 20. 1917.] 



Index. 



Page 



1, The Coleoptera of the Family Cissidae found in Britain ... 83 



Introduction 83 



Table of Genera and Species 84 



Notes on Characters and Distribution, with Description 



of New Species -. 86 



2. A new Species of the Coleopteran Genus Cryptorrhynchus 



Illiger 93 



Introduction. 



It is well known that since at least the time of that eminent 

 French entomologist the Abbe Latreille (1806), the Order 

 Coleoptera has been divided into major groups superior to 

 families, which have been based principally on affinities in the 

 form and character of the antenna?, or on the number of tarsal 

 joints. 



These groups constituted, as they have been, differently by 

 different authorities and known by different names, present 

 anomalies difficult to reconcile or explain. 



The family Cissida? Mellie (1848), which forms the subject of 

 these notes, is in its morphology one of the most anomalous of 

 these constituents. 



It was included by the British authority Marsham (1802) in 

 the genus Ptinus L., and by Stephens (1839) in the family 

 Bostrichifhe Leach, and close to Anobium F. 



Thus the family maintained its position in the w T orks of sub- 

 sequent British authorities among the Teredilia or Serricornia, 

 of which such genera formed part. 



In the latest general European list (Heyden, Reitter, and 

 Weise, 1906), the Cissida? have been placed after the Myceto- 

 phagida? among the Clavicornia, and as that arrangement has 

 been followed by, the most recent list of the British Coleoptera 

 (Newbery and Sharp, 1915), I propose to adopt it here as well as 

 the specific nomenclature of the family there used. 



The Cissidae are fungi vorous, and may be found in various kinds 

 of Boleti and Polypori on old trees and logs. 



Very few species are attached to any particular kind of fungus. 



A piece of Boletus from Godalming once produced no less than 



* Communicated by the Secretary. 



6* 



