NOTES ON THE AUSTRALIAN SPECIES OP THE FAMILY PAUSSIDAE [COLEOPTERA]. By the late T. G. Sloane. (Prepared for publication by H. J. Carter, B.A., F.E.S.) [Read 25th October, 1933.] The late T. G. Sloane was greatly interested in the Paussidae and, inter-mittently, gave much close study to it, at least from 1920 to 1927. Among papers left by him were four note-books (together with a photo of Westwood's plate) containing detailed results of this study, though the notes had not been collected into a coherent whole. Up to the year 1924 two authors, Westwood and Macleay, had described the great majority of recorded Australian species. Unfortunately, two publications by these authors on the subject clashed^ and no entomologist has, so far, tried to disentangle their probable overlapping. Sloane had clearly arrived at determinations of the greater number of these species, had classified them into groups, and, further, had tabulated the species in these groups, when a new author. Professor Hermann Kolbe, in 1924, published four papers on Australian Paussidae-. In these papers he described some 29 species as new and arranged the genus Arthropterus in two main groups which he again subdivided into eight subgenera. The greater part of the subsequent notes by Sloane was devoted to an attempted elucidation of Kolbe's work, and a determination of the species described by him. A complete set of these four papers by Kolbe formed one of the four note-books mentioned above. Sloane's note-books are now lodged in the library of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. Certain of his conclusions seem worth publishing, so that future students of the family may benefit by the work of one of the most careful and accurate of Australian Coleopterists. The family Paussidae is strikingly different from other Coleoptera. Sluggish in movement, in general with greatly widened appendages, they are, in other parts of the world, usually associated with ants or termites. In a few instances they have been thus observed in Australia. Thus Sloane quotes a letter from C. Oke: "One from Eltham taken in nest of Iridomyrmex rufoniger. The pair from Bendigo were obtained under a fairly large stone, well imbedded, in a nest of Campanotus clavipes, being the only ones I have found in association with ants." Lea reports A. Jyrevis in nest of Ectatomma metallicum, and A. angulatus Macl. taken at Bowen by A. Simson in ant's nest. Mjoberg found A. piceus West. on trunks of trees at night. Westwood records A. hopei as found at Port Phillip under bark and dried cowdung. Sloane says: "I have only found Arthropterus 1 Westwood in Thesaurus Ent. Oxon.. 1874, and Macleay in Trans. Ent. Soc. N.S.W., 1873. -(a) Die Australischen Paussiden der Wassmann'schen Sammlung (Tijd. v. Ent., 1924) ; (b) Uber einige Paussiden Arten Australiens {I.e.) ; (c) Australische Paussiden-Arten in deutschen Museen {Ent. Mitteil., 1924) : (d) Zur Kenntnis der Paussiden Australiens: untergattungen von Arthroi)terus {Deutsch. Ent. Zeit., 1924).
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