NAUTES. 277 
The different species are found upon herbage; or by beating the withered still- 
attached leaves of fallen trees ; or beneath loose bark. 
NAUTES. 
Nautes, Pascoe, Journ. Ent. ii. p. 475 (1866); F. Bates, Ent. Monthly Mag. vi. p. 270 (1870) (pars) ; 
Allard, Rév. Hélopides, L’Abeille, xiv. p. 6 (pars); Mittheil. der schweiz. ent. Ges. v. pp. 19, 
58, & 245 (pars). 
I take WV. fervidus as the type of this New-World genus, and include in it such 
species as seem to have a close affinity with that insect; some metallic species, 
however, here referred to Tarpela might almost as well be included in Nautes, the 
structure of the pro- and mesosterna proving, at least in Tarpela, to be a variable 
character. 
Nautes, thus understood, contains a considerable number of species, nearly all of 
which appear to be peculiar to our region ; so far as at present known, the genus ranges 
from Mexico to Colombia, and is also represented in the Antilles. The numerous 
additional species now known renders some addition necessary to the definition of the 
genus, a single species only (lV. fervidus) being known to the original describer. As 
understood here it will not include NV. eximius, F. Bates, nor the Texan Helops farctus, 
Lec. The species are, with some few exceptions, of brilliant metallic colours and 
often very shining, and suggestive of some of the genera of the preceding group, the 
“ Cnodalonides.” The head is deeply sunk into the prothorax, short, rarely long 
(NV. striatipennis); in the more typical species very short, a little convex, and with 
the epistoma confounded with the front ; in others shallowly, rarely deeply, transversely 
impressed in front. The prothorax is transverse, sometimes nearly twice as broad as long, 
very strongly margined, the margins usually thickened, and very closely embraces the 
elytra; the anterior angles are broad and rather prominent, but usually more or less 
rounded (in one species, WV. antennatus, subtriangularly produced, thus resembling certain 
forms of Tarpela); in most of the shorter and more convex species (both apterous and 
winged) the base is very strongly bisinuate, and has the central portion somewhat produced 
and rounded, and the margin sometimes very indistinct or obsolete. The strongly 
margined elytra vary in shape from moderately long and subparallel to very short and 
gibbous; in the short, very convex or gibbous (apterous) species the sutural stria is 
quite obsolete, though deeply impressed in the others. The mesosternum is V-shaped, 
and more or less deeply excavate; usually horizontal and with the raised sides quite 
vertical in front, in others the raised sides more rounded off above. The prosternum 
(or prosternal process) is always produced; in the more typical species (WV. fervidus, 
&c.) quite horizontal and acuminately produced; in the shorter and more convex 
species it is, as might be expected, broader and shorter. The metasternum is 
variable in length ; shorter in the apterous species; in one, WV. enoplopoides, exceedingly 
short. The elytral epipleuree are abbreviated at the last ventral suture. The legs in 
