ASPH^RA. 401 



Hab. Beitish Hondueas, Belize (Blancaneaux) ; Guatemala 3 , Yzabal (Salle), Chacoj, 

 Panima (Champion); Nicaeagua, Chontales (Janson, Belt) ; Panama, Caldera, Bugaba, 

 Volcan de Chiriqui (Champion).— Colombia 2 3 ; Guiana, Cayenne 1 . 



This handsome species may be known at once by the two transverse bright metallic 

 purplish bands of the elytra, the apices of which are similarly coloured. The vertex of 

 the head is black, the lower portion of the face, with the frontal tubercles, yellowish. 

 The elytral bands are subject to variation in size, and are sometimes much broader than 

 usual, the second band, on the contrary, being reduced to a spot in some specimens. 



6. Asphaera cyanopis. (Tab. xxiii. fig. 9.) 



Asphcera cyanopis, Harold, Col. Hefte, xv. 1876, p. 120 \ 



Hab. Mexico 1 , Cordova, Toxpam, Tuxtla, Tepansacualco, Playa Vicente (Salle), 

 Jalapa (Edge) ; Costa Eica ( Van Patten). 



The design of the pale testaceous elytra in this species consists in the typical form of a 

 transverse metallic violaceous basal band and a subquadrate spot of similar colour below 

 the middle of each elytron. In several specimens of a variety before me, the basilar band 

 is divided into two spots, which in a second variety are very small, as well as the 

 posterior one. Constant characters in A. cyanopis seem to be the black head and the 

 spot at the apex of the posterior femora. Some specimens from Jalapa have the elytra 

 of a reddish-fulvous colour. A single specimen from the collection of Sturm bears the 

 MS. name of A. includens. The reduction of the elytral spots in the variety to a 

 minimum includes the probability of the total disappearance of these spots in others ; 

 it is therefore quite possible that A. polita, Jac, described here, which I cannot distin- 

 guish from A. cyanopis, except by the entirely testaceous or fulvous elytra, may be but 

 one of the varieties of the latter species ; but having sixteen specimens of that species 

 before me which show no variation, I am obliged to separate them from A. cyanopis. 



7. Asphaera clerica. 



Homophceta clerica, Erichs. in Schomb. Reise, 1848, iii. p. 578 \ 

 (Edionychis laticollis, Jacoby, P. Z. S. 1880, p. 181 2 . 



Hab. Guatemala, Duenas 2 , Capetillo (Champion); Panama, Volcan de Chiriqui 

 (Champion). — Colombia 1 2 (coll. Jacoby). 



Erichson's species was overlooked by me at the time of my publication. There is no 

 difference between the Central and South-American specimens. The black band of the 

 thorax occupies the entire disc, leaving the margins only testaceous ; the same may be 

 said of the elytra, where the lighter portion divides the dark square-shaped spots into 

 the shape of a narrow cross. 



biol. cente.-amer., Coleopt., Vol. VI. Pt. 1, November 1885. 3 f 



