DINOCLEUS.—LIXUS. 101 
quadrate prothorax, the finer, sparser, and mottled pubescence, and the minutely 
seriato-granulate elytral interstices separate it at once from D. molitor, its nearest 
ally. | 
LIXUS. 
Lixus, Fabricius, Syst. Eleuth: ii. p. 498 (1801) ; Lacordaire, Gen. Col. vi. p. 439; Leconte, Proc. 
Am. Phil. Soc. xv. pp. 144, 153; Casey, Journ. N. York Acad. Sci. vi. pp. 176, 194. 
Scaphomorphus, Motschulsky, Bull. Acad. St. Pétersb. ii. p. 541 (1860). 
A genus of almost universal distribution. In nine out of the twenty-three species * 
here enumerated from within our limits, the wings are rudimentary or absent, the 
elytra being particularly hard in these forms. ‘They all have the scutellum vertical 
or depressed, and often quite invisible when the prothorax is closed up to the elytra ; 
and the eyes oval in shape. J. basilaris, L. mexicanus, &c., vary enormously in 
size, with a corresponding variation in the development of the rostrum, which is almost 
always longer in the female than in the male (very much longer in L. fimbriolatus 
and L. toltecus), and antenne, the latter being usually inserted nearer the tip of the 
rostrum in the males. The sculpture, too, is somewhat unstable, as is also the relative 
length of the basal joints of the funiculus and the prolongation or otherwise of the 
apices of the elytra. The members of this genus, as is well known, are often coated 
with a dense pollinose secretion, which is said to be renewable during the life of the 
insect ¢, completely covering the sculpture and pubescence: the amount of pubescence 
seems to be variable (at least in several of the species), some of that visible in fresh 
specimens being afterwards lost; and the presence of a condensed submarginal vitta, 
unless accompanied by a corresponding groove, is an inconstant character. ‘The males 
of most of the Central-American forms have the basal one or two segments of the 
abdomen more or less sulcate down the middle. No fewer than 233 species of Lirus 
are enumerated in the “Munich Catalogue,” but a number of these names must be 
synonyms. 
The various forms captured by myself in Guatemala or Panama were mostly obtained 
by beating herbage. 
a. Wings fully developed. 
a’, Prothorax with scattered coarser punctures intermixed with the closer 
minute punctuation. 
a, Anterior femora acutely dentate . . . . . + + « « «+ « « « Species 1. 
b!. Anterior femora unarmed. . . . 1. 6 ee ee we we) «Species 2-12, 
* The North-American L. prepotens, Boh. (? =Rhynchophorus prepotens, Say), is also quoted from 
“Mexico” in Schdnherr’s work (Gen. Cure, vii. 1, p. 468); this species has not been identified by either 
Leconte or Casey. 
+ See Rojas (Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1857, pp. 329-333) and Jekel (Journ. Ent. i. pp, 12-16). 
