Page:Memoirs on the coleoptera (IA memoirsoncoleopt01case).pdf/10

2 surface being glued to cards, so that the most important characters are not observable, except through a good deal of mechanical labor and risk of injury or destruction of the types. Most remarkable systematic characters have in this way remained unappreciated, if not virtually unknown to them in various sections of the Coleoptera, especially in such genera as Cardiola and in Anthicus and related genera. The three investigators above mentioned are among the notable exceptions to this rule however.

During the past twenty-five years the writer has been steadily accumulating as much material as possible in the Aleocharinæ, with a view to ultimately describing and classifying the species, but pressure of other matters has thus far left too little time for any serious attempt in that direction. It is considered desirable, however, to describe this material now, so far as may be convenient and in a less systematic way, in order that the types may remain in this country for the benefit of coming students of our Staphylinidæ. The species were all described as new, and, in vast majority, are actually in this category without question; but in all cases where it has been possible to identify them with species previously described, I have simply substituted the name given by the previous author and allowed the description to remain. Although the species here described in the group Athetæ may seem perhaps to be inordinate in number, it can be said with great confidence that they represent only a fraction of the seemingly unending horde occurring in North America, where the Staphylinid fauna is far richer than in Europe; so the likelihood of having made any considerable number of synonyms of species previously described is, from every point of view, minute or negligible.



The Athetæ constitute one of the largest and most intricate groups of the entire Coleoptera, and give rise to much diversity of opinion regarding scope and validity of genera. In my own opinion an intermediate course between the prevailing assumption of the present day, that such conspicuously different types as Atheta, Datomicra and Amischa, not to mention a score of more in addition, are not truly generic on the one hand, and the naming of so-called