CRYPTOCEPHALUS. 101 
exactly as in the type, but with the punctures finer, and the stric at the sides still 
more irregularly placed and difficult to trace, although the general arrangement is 
indicated as in the typical form. 
6 (4). Cryptocephalus difficilis, (Tab. XX XVII. fig. 14, 2.) 
Dark or yellowish-brown ; antenne (the basal joints excepted) black ; thorax smooth (¢), or finely punctured 
( 9’), the margins and two spots at the base bright yellow ; elytra deeply punctate-striate, flavous, with 
three broad transverse brown bands. 
Length 2 lines. 
Hab. Mexico, Las Vigas (Hége). 
Of this species, which is doubtless closely allied to C. flavonotatus, if not a variety 
of that insect, two specimens were obtained by Herr Hoge during his second expedi- 
tion. The ground-colour in the male is bright flavous. The head is finely and 
sparingly punctured, its middle portion, as well as the disc of the labrum, dark brown ; 
the antenne are nearly black, with the two basal joints dark fulvous. The thorax is 
about twice as broad as long, rather strongly narrowed in front, with long and acutely- 
pointed posterior angles; the surface is shining and scarcely visibly punctured in the 
male, more distinctly so in the female; the dark brown colour of the disc is interrupted 
by the narrow anterior and the broadly lateral flavous margins and at the base by two 
narrow and widely-separated oblique flavous spots which are connected by the narrow 
similarly-coloured portion of the posterior margin. The elytra have the transverse brown 
bands much more pronounced than they are in C. flavonotatus ; the punctures are not 
so closely placed, and the interstices are much flatter; the fifth row (which in C. flavo- 
notatus forms an acute angle below the middle, and is joined at that place to the 
posterior end of the sixth row) is in part broken up and irregularly arranged, the punc- 
tures being placed in two rows (indicating the fifth and sixth rows), but is continued 
anteriorly to the shoulder; the seventh and eighth rows, which are joined at the apex 
(as in C flavonotatus), form each below the middle a short transverse angle, and enclose 
between them a smooth, slightly raised transverse space, immediately above which there 
is another similar transverse space. The underside of the male is much lighter in 
colour than that of the female, the latter also having the legs entirely brown, the 
femora in the other sex being marked with a yellow spot at the base. C. difficilis 
differs, therefore, from C. flavonotatus in the thorax being less closely punctured and 
more shining, and in having the brown and yellow colours sharply divided, and also 
in the different system of punctuation of the elytra. ‘The female insect is figured. 
6 (3). Cryptocephalus dissolutus. 
Pale flavous or fulvous, the terminal joints of the antenne black; thorax extremely finely punctured, flavous, 
a lozenge-shaped spot at the middle, fulvous ; elytra flavous, a transverse band at the base, two spots 
below the middle and one at the apex, dark brown. 
Length 3 lines. 
Hab. Mexico, La Parada (Sallé); Guatemaza, Duefias (mus. Stuttgart). 
