PHALERIA.—BYCREA. 221 
more or less broadly to the base; legs and antenne testaceous, the three basal joints of the anterior tarsi 
slightly dilated in the male. 
Length 33-43 millim. (¢ 2.) 
Hab. Guatemata, San José, Champerico (Champion). 
This distinct little species may be known by the sculpture of its rather dull upper 
surface, the base of the thorax not margined, and the faintly impressed elytral strie ; 
the markings of the elytra are very constant in the seven examples before me. 
9. Phaleria insularis. (Tab. X. fig. 4.) 
Elliptic, moderately convex, testaceous, slightly shining. Head piceous, the anterior margin paler, sparingly 
and not very finely punctured; prothorax transverse. the sides converging from the base, slightly rounded 
before the middle, almost straight behind and also just before the apex, the anterior angles prominent, the 
base not margined and with a shallow oblique fovea on each side, the surface exceedingly finely and 
sparingly punctured, the base sometimes very narrowly piceous ; elytra distinctly wider than the prothorax 
at the base, the humeri prominent, finely and narrowly striate, the strie more or less obsolete before the 
middle, lightly impressed behind, the interstices flat, each elytron with a short longitudinal or oblique 
brown or piceous streak a little beyond the middle, the suture narrowly and the first interstice for a short 
distance beyond the middle also piceous; legs and antenne testaceous, the three basal joints of the anterior 
tarsi distinctly dilated in the male. 
Length 5-53 millim. (3 @.) 
Hab. Mexico, Tres Marias Islands (Forrer). 
This species is closely allied to P. debilis, Lec., from Cape San Lucas, but, judging 
from the description, distinct. P. debilis is said to have the elytra not wider than the 
thorax at the base; in P. insularis the thorax, though transverse, is comparatively 
narrow, distinctly narrower than the elytra at the base. 
The seven examples before me scarcely vary in the maculation of the elytra. 
BYCREA. 
Bycrea, Pascoe, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1868, p. xii; E. Duges, Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg. xxix. pt. 2, 
pp. 51-54, t. 4. figg. 1-25 (1885). 
This genus, very briefly described by Mr. Pascoe, contains a single species, B. villosa, 
from Mexico. Dr. E. Dugés (op. cit.) has quite recently given a full account of the. 
life-history of this species, describing and figuring the larva and pupa, as well as the 
perfect insect—this very careful observer having found both the larva and the perfect: 
insect “in the nests of an ant, Atta cephalota, the-larva appearing to live on the 
detritus of Acacia albicans, of which the nests are in great part formed.” 
In Bycrea the anterior and intermediate tibie are each furnished at the inner apical 
angle with a single long and stout curved spur (described by Mr. Pascoe as “ tarsi 
unicalcarati”), and the inner apical angle of the posterior tibiz with a shorter spur; 
the first joint of the anterior tarsi greatly dilated in the male; the upper surface (in 
fresh specimens) densely clothed with golden brown decumbent hairs. 
