PYROTA.—CANTHARIS. A437 
nearly as broad as long, and bears a few minute scattered punctures; the elytra are 
dull, minutely punctate, and have three well-marked fine coste; the legs are stout ; 
the anterior and middle tarsi are considerably dilated in the male; the outer spur of 
the hind tibie is very broad, the inner one acute and slender; the under surface is 
clothed with very coarse, long, yellowish hairs ; the sixth ventral segment in the male 
is very broadly triangularly excavate along the middle from the deeply-emarginate 
apex nearly to the base, the cavity being filled with membrane. The short, stout 
antenne, the intermediate joints of which are much thickened, the stout legs, &c., 
distinguish this insect from P. nobilis. 
CANTHARIS. Go. wi 
hoo 
Cantharis, Linneus, Acta Upsal. 1736, p. 19; Horn, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. xiii. p. 103; Leconte 
& Horn, Class. Col. N. Am. p. 421; Dugés, An. Mus. Michoacano, ii. p. 96 (1889). 
Lytta, Fabricius, Syst. Ent. p. 260. 
Cantharis, as adopted here, following Leconte and Horn’s classification of the 
North-American Vesicants, includes only those species with the antenne thicker 
externally (at least in the female, the intermediate joints often thickened in the male), 
the anterior femora and tibize without a silky-pubescent concave space on their inner 
face, the labrum feebly emarginate, and the two portions of each tarsal claw equal in 
length and separate. 
Twenty-five species are here recorded from within our limits, as against thirty-five 
from the United States; four only occur south of Mexico. Dr. Horn’s Group III. is 
not represented in Central America, and five only of our species (as against eighteen) 
belong to his Group IT. There is a good deal of confusion in the synonymy of several 
Mexican species, Dugés and Haag having each described certain of them under different 
names *. 
The form of the sixth ventral segment, and in some cases that of the last dorsal 
segment also, in the male, is a very important character for discriminating between the 
various species of this genus; but it is not noticed by Haag. In C. quadrimaculata, 
Chevr., and C. sanguineoguttata, Haag, the last dorsal segment (or pygidium) has an 
elongate process in the male; C. sangwineoguttata also possesses other extraordinary 
male characters. C. quadrimaculata, C. biguttata, C. proteus, and C. variabilis vary 
very much in colour; of the two latter, varietal forms still “in copula” have been 
received from M. Sallé or Herr Hoge. C. dichroa, Lec., is recorded by Dr. Horn 
(Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. xiii. p. 112) as from Mexico, but no specimen of it has been 
received by us. | 
Outer spur of the hind tibiz much stouter than the inner one. 
Antenne (¢) with joints 4-6 distorted . . . . . . «+. + ~ Species 1. 
Antenne (¢) with joint 4 dilated, 5 distorted . . . . . . . + . Species 2-4. 
* Cantharis angulicollis, Dugés, from Lower California=C. vulnerata, Lec. 
