1927] 
Four New Helmidce from Cuba 
91 
FOUR NEW HELMIDiE FROM CUBA, WITH NOTES ON 
OTHER WEST INDIAN SPECIES 1 
By P. J. Darlington, Jr. 
In common with all but the most thoroughly worked parts 
of the world the West Indies have yielded to entomological col- 
lections only a very small fraction of their probable Helmid 
fauna, indeed only one species of the family is at present re- 
corded from that entire series of islands. It was with particular 
pleasure, therefore, that four apparently undescribed species of 
Helmis were collected during the eight weeks which I was privi- 
leged to spend, during the fall of 1926, at the Harvard Biological 
Laboratory on the Soledad sugar “central”, near Cienfuegos, 
southern Santa Clara, Cuba. The genus was first noted on Oct. 
19, when two specimens were taken on a stone secured from the 
bed of the Arimao River. The same locality was visited again 
on Dec. 3, and two hours of back-breaking work in from six to 
eighteen inches of swiftly flowing water, just above the point 
where the current broke into a series of minor rapids, yielded 
twenty- nine specimens, including all the species obtained. 
Finally, a single specimen was discovered in going over alcoholic 
material collected Nov. 24, along a gravel bar of one of the larger 
tributaries of the Arimao. 
These species have definite affinities with others occuring in 
the southern United States, notably in Texas, but all have equally 
definite distinguishing characters of specific value. As far as I 
can judge from the descriptions and plates in “Biologia,” none of 
the described Mexican and Central American species are very 
closely allied to the Cuban ones, a finding which is in agreement 
with the general conclusions reached by Leng and Mutchler in 
their preliminary list of West Indian Coleoptera. In order to 
establish relationships, specimens or descriptions of all the species 
listed from America north of Mexico by Mr. Leng have been 
examined. 
The Cuban species are only moderately closely related 
Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Insti- 
tution, Harvard University, No. 283. 
