832 HETEROMERA. 
Hab. Guaremata, slopes of the Volcan de Fuego above Capetillo and Duenas 
6400 feet (Salvin, Champion), Calderas 6500 feet ( Champion). — 
In its very convex and smooth thorax and lightly striate elytra P. fumosa resembles 
F. tristis; the base of the thorax, however, is not strongly bisinuate as in that species, 
but broadly and feebly arcuate as in P. opaca; the elytra are ovate in form and very 
much shorter than in P. fristis, and also have more prominent humeri and the base 
nearly straight. 
This insect is only known to me as yet from the forest-clad slopes of the Volcan de 
Fuego, where both Mr. Salvin and myself have found it not uncommonly. 
Group STRONGYLIIDES. 
This group contains several hundred species, inhabiting the warmer regions of both 
the Old and the New World, though far more numerous in Tropical America than 
elsewhere. The described genera are comparatively few in number, and the one genus 
Strongylium at present contains more species than all the others put together. A 
large number of species, chiefly Mexican, have already been described from our region 
by Maklin and J. Thomson. 
The secondary sexual organs of all the species I have examined are of the usual 
character: the males have a simple pointed sheath, and the females a horizontal process 
with a short style on each side at the apex. 
These insects are exceedingly numerous in the forest-regions of Tropical America ; 
they are especially abundant about the decaying timber in burnt forest-clearings, in 
company with species of Erotylide; and are also frequently found upon leaves. The 
earlier stages are no doubt passed in decaying wood or in the fungoid growths attached 
thereto. 
CUPHOTES. 
Spheniscus, Kirby, Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. p. 421 (1818) ; Lacordaire, Gen. Col. v. p. 480 (1859) ; 
J. Thomson, Monogr. in Arcana Natura, p.101 (1859), & Physis, ii. p. 180 (1867) (nomen 
preocc.). 
Twenty-eight species of this Tropical-American genus are enumerated in Gemminger 
and Harold’s Catalogue (vii. pp. 2026 & 2027); at least one fourth of these names, 
however, do not represent distinct species but varieties, or are referable to Pecilesthus 
as here understood. Too much importance has in several cases (as in Strongylium) 
been attached to colour differences, not only of the elytra but of the thorax and femora, 
as a specific character—these differences being subject to variation in a long series of 
examples. The punctuation of the thorax also varies in intensity in some species, 
though not so much as in Strongylium. Cuphotes is represented in our region by six 
species, one or two of which have a wide range. 
