HEMICEEPIDIUS. 481 



the former proving to be a variable character. The insect is very variable in colour, 

 especially in the female sex, the thorax, and sometimes the head also, being often partly 

 or entirely rufous or rufo-ferruginous. In four of the specimens from Coban, all females, 

 the elytra are reddish-brown. The legs vary in colour from testaceous to almost black. 

 The pubescence on the scutellum is whitish or cinereous, and in fresh specimens the 

 elytra have some whitish hairs at the base in front. The single (female) specimen from 

 Guatemala in the Salle collection is broader than usual, with the thorax more densely 

 punctured, the elytra more rugose, and the pubescence on the upper surface entirely 

 fulvo-cinereous ; it perhaps belongs to another species. The Costa Eican examples are 

 narrower and a little more elongate than the others, but they cannot be separated ; in 

 one of the males the thoracic carinas are almost obsolete. The type of H. leucostigma 

 is a female. H. instabilis in all its varieties may be known from most of the allied 

 forms by the elongate thorax, with distinctly carinate hind angles, and the sparsely 

 pubescent surface. We figure a variety of the male from Cerro de Plumas, and a 

 female of the variety leucostigma from Sinanja. 



5. Hemicrepidius longicollis. (Tab. XXI. fig. 9, <s .) 



$ . Asaphes longicollis, Cand. Monogr. Elat. iv. p. 218 \ 

 <$ . Asaphes deceptor, Cand. loc. cit. p. 219 2 . 

 ? . Asaphes soricinus, Deyr. in litt. 



Hob. Mexico 1 2 , Etla, Yolos, Tepansacualco, Parada, Juquila, Orizaba [Salle), 

 Cordova (Salle, Edge), Jalapa (Edge, M. Trujillo), Chilpancingo (H. II Smith). 



Not uncommon in Mexico. The males of this species are usually black, with the 

 hind angles of the thorax more or less rufo-ferruginous, and the females reddish-brown 

 or with the elytra of that colour. The pubescence is rather coarse and close. In 

 some specimens (as in the type of H. longicollis) the sides of the thorax and a line 

 down the middle, and the scutellum, are cinereo-pubescent, and there is sometimes an 

 oblique cinereo-pubescent stripe on each elytron extending from the shoulder downwards, 

 the rest of the pubescence being fuscous or fusco-cinereous ; in others (H. deceptor *) 

 the pubescence is uniformly cinereous or yellowish-cinereous. The antennee and legs 

 vary in colour. The antennas extend to a little beyond the hind angles of the thorax 

 in the males, slightly shorter in the females. The thorax is much longer than broad, 

 closely punctured, with the hind angles finely carinate. The elytra are deeply punctate- 

 striate, with the interstices rather convex and rugosely punctured ; the apices are 

 obliquely truncate, with the sutural angles mucronate. H. longicollis may be known 

 from H. instabilis by the closer and coarser pubescence, the shorter and finer carina of 

 the hind angles of the thorax, and the more obliquely truncate apices of the elytra. 

 In some of the largest females the punctuation of the thorax is sparser and coarser, 



* Dr. Candeze (op. cit.) compares this insect with H. Jlavipes, evidently in mistake for H. longicollis. 



biol. centk.-amee., Coleopt., Vol. III. Pt. 1, March 1896. 3 Q 



