375 
[Scudder. 
1892. J 
European Tertiary fauna. These peculiarities consist in the ex- 
traordinary development of the Rhynchitidae, already alluded 
to ; the great preponderance of the Otiorhynchidae due to its 
remarkable development in the localities other than Florissant ; 
and the meager showing of the Scolytidae, this last also seen in 
the European Tertiaries and undoubtedly resulting from the 
habits of life of these insects as subcortical feeders on trees, 
which would prevent their deposition in places where their fossil 
remains could be preserved. The reduction in this direction is 
indeed so great as to effect a very slight lessening of the relative 
numbers of the Curculionidae which here as in the living fauna 
easily hold the first place. The other relative differences between 
the Tertiary and existing fauna in America are but slight, the 
Calandridae of the Tertiaries losing about as much in relative 
numbers as the An thribidae gain when compared with the exist- 
ing fauna. As compared with the European Tertiary fauna, the 
American shows the same excess in the relative numbers of 
Rhynchitidae and Otiorhynchidae as it does when compared with 
the recent American fauna ; but both the Curculionidae and the 
Scolytidae gain in relative importance in the European Tertiaries, 
whose chief peculiarity, however, consists in the considerable 
development of the small family Byrsopidae. The Rhinomacer- 
idae and Brenthidae alone, small groups, do not occur in either 
Tertiary fauna, and the Attelabidae and Byrsopidae are also ab- 
sent from the American. 
To bring the differences to view in another way and consider 
only the families represented in the American Tertiary fauna we 
may mark their relative position in the scale of numbers as in 
the following table. 
Relative Importance of the Families of Rhynchophora. 
Families. 
Place as to Numbers. 
Recent 
American 
Fossil 
American 
Fossil 
European 
Rhynchitidae 
6 
3 
6 
Otiorhynchidae 
3 
2 
2 
Curculionidae 
1 
1 
1 
Calandridae 
4 
5 
13-4 
) 
Scolytidae 
2 
6 
Anthribidae 
5 
4 
5 
