INTRODUCTION. XVIiT 
female sex only, are peculiar to Mexico and the adjacent country to the northward ; 
fifty-three species, belonging to three genera, inhabit Central America. The 
‘Zopherides ’ have their head-quarters in Central America, and the genera Zopherus 
and Nosoderma are amongst the most characteristic Heteromera of the region— 
Zopherus, with fourteen species, ranging a little north and also a little south of our 
limits; Nosoderma, with sixteen species, though more widely distributed, not extending 
north of Mexico, being replaced there by the allied genera Noserus, Phlwodes, and 
Phellopsis. The ‘Tentyriides, so numerous in genera and species in the Palearctic 
Region, contain comparatively few representatives in the New World, and the majority 
of the Central American species belong to one genus, Emmenastus. The other three 
groups, the ‘ Epiphysides,’ the ‘ Stenosides,’ and the ‘ Dacoderides,’ furnish only one, 
three, and one species respectively, all from Northern or Western Mexico. The sub- 
family Asidine includes four “ groups,” three of which are not represented south of 
Mexico ; the other group, the ‘ Nycteliides,’ is more widely distributed, being especially 
numerous in Chili, and three genera (two of which form the ‘ Branchini’ of Leconte 
and Horn) of somewhat uncertain affinities are referred to it—Branchus with two 
species, and Anectus and Oxinthas with one each *. ‘The ‘ Asidides,’ ‘ Cryptoglossides, 
and ‘ Coniontides’ are characteristic of the arid regions of the Southern and South- 
western United States and of the elevated plateau of Mexico, the genus Asida possessing 
fifty-five species in Mexico alone; Coniontis, with many species in California &c., is 
unknown as yet from within our limits, where it appears to be replaced by Eusattus, 
ten species of which occur in Mexico. The subfamily Tenebrionine includes a 
multitude of species, and twenty-one of its main “ groups” are represented in Central 
America; six of these “groups,” the ‘ Kutelides,’ ‘ Phrenapatides,’ ‘ Goniaderides,’ 
‘ Cnodalonides,’ ‘ Misolampides,’ and ‘ Amarygmides,’ all containing forest species, do 
not extend north of Mexico; North America, however, has two groups, the ‘ Amphi- 
dorides’ and the ‘ Meracanthides,’ which are absent from the Central American fauna. 
The species of seven of the “groups” of the Tenebrionine live upon the ground, 
those of all the other “ groups” being found on trees or herbage, or under bark, 
in rotten wood, or in fungi attached thereto. The number of Central American 
species of the subfamily amounts to 643, belonging to 115 genera, 40 genera and 
422 species being described as new. Of the various “groups,” the ‘ Blaptides,’ 
represented within our limits by two exclusively Central and North-American genera— 
Eleodes with sixty, and Embaphion with one, species in Mexico,—are characteristic 
* Psectrascelis has been incorrectly recorded by Solier as from Mexico. 
BIOL, CENTR.-AMER., Coleopt., Vol. IV. Pt. 1, March 1893. C 
