506 STAPHYLINID A. 
Subfam. PHDERINA. 
Group LATHROBIINA. 
CRYPTOBIUM. 
Cryptobium, Mannerheim, Brach. p. 830; Er. Gen. et Spec. Staph. p. 561. 
Homeotarsus, Hochuth, Bull. Mosc. 1851, p. 34. 
This genus, originally established for a single European species, comprises at present 
about one hundred species, and is found in most parts of the world. The species in 
the New World are evidently especially numerous, and present a most difficult study 
to the coleopterist, the sexual characters being peculiar and subject to a complex 
variation that may be described as quite analogous with the phenomena that exist in 
the cornute Lamellicornia. Thus males of certain species have a produced lobe, some- 
times of enormous size, on the middle of the hind body beneath, and also some 
pubescent and setigerous spaces; but in certain examples of the same species and sex 
the lobe may be entirely absent, and the pubescent or setigerous spaces much reduced, 
and, I am inclined to think, occasionally, like the ventral lobe, entirely absent; this 
latter varies in form according to the species, and may be a long slender spine, or a 
very broad plate, sometimes cleft nearly to the base. The females of certain species 
apparently have setigerous spots similar to those of the male; but this is rare, and 
requires verification by dissection—the rule, at any rate, being that both setigerous 
spaces and the ventral lobe are absent in this sex; and I think it possible that the 
supposed females with setigerous spaces may prove to be incompletely developed 
males. 
I find the best character for dividing the genus consists in the presence or absence of 
a raised line on the outside of the wing-case parallel with the lateral margin. This 
does not exist in the original species of the genus, but is present in the majority of 
those in our fauna, and will ultimately prove, I think, of generic importance. In the 
Central-American region the species of this section are very homogeneous in structure, 
the labrum being destitute of denticles, the lower tooth of the mandibles divided, and 
the pro- and mesosterna strongly carinate. The species of section 2 are much less 
homogeneous; C. rostratwm, very aberrant for our fauna, approaching rather closely 
in structure to the European C. fracticorne, while in other species the labrum is not 
denticulate in the middle; the mandibles may be either simply bidentate (C. rostratum 
and others) or with the lower tooth bifid (C. nigriventre, &c.)—the species near to 
C. nquisitor being closely allied, but differing inter se in this respect, prevent its being 
utilized as a subsectional character. 
The structure of the terminal joints of the maxillary palpi is of subordinate value 
to some of the other characters I have alluded to, and cannot therefore be used for 
