DELOCRANIA. 125 
Fam. CASSIDIDA *. 
The characters used to separate this Family from the Hispide are of exceedingly 
doubtful value; and some of the species placed in Himatidium by Boheman really 
belong to Demotispa, Baly, a genus of Hispide. Most of the South-American genera 
are represented within our limits by at least one species, but several are wholly absent, 
as Spheropalpus, Calopepla, Calliaspis, Spilophora, Canistra, and Pacilaspis. The head- 
quarters of the family in the New World is in Tropical South America. Chelymorpha 
and Physonota are perhaps the most characteristic genera of the Central-American 
Cassidide, and Platycycla is peculiar to Mexico and Guatemala. Eurypepla is common 
to the Antilles and Yucatan. Further remarks on the distribution of the Central- 
American representatives of the family will be given in the ‘“ Introduction” to this 
Volume. 
"Section I. Antenne rigid, the joints very closely articulated ; first and second ventral 
segments more or less connate ; prothorax deeply emarginate in front, leaving the 
head exposed ; claws simple. 
To this section also belong the South-American genera Spheropalpus, Calopepla, 
_Calliaspis, and Spilophora, and the Eastern genera Epistictia, Megapyga, and Prioptera. 
DELOCRANTA. 
 Delocrania, Guérin, Mag. Zool. 1844, Ins. t. 181. p. 1; Boheman, Monogr. Cassid. i. p. 4, t. 1. 
figg. A, 1-5. 
_ This remarkable genus contains three or four closely allied species, all peculiar to 
Tropical America; one only, D. cossyphoides, Guér., has been described. It has the 
first and second ventral segments connate, the suture between them being almost 
obliterated in the middle. 
1..Delocrania panamensis, (Tab. V. fig. 1.) 
Oblong; subparallel, dull ferruginous, the dilated margins of the prothorax and elytra flavo-testaceous ; the 
antenne ferruginous, with the five or six outer joints (the tip of the eleventh excepted) infuscate or 
piceous:” Head with a few rather coarse punctures behind, canaliculate in the middle in front. Pro- 
thorax” moderately coarsely, irregularly, and closely punctured on the disc; the margins somewhat thickly 
covered with transverse or oblique foveew, each formed by two confluent punctures. Elytra scarcely 
wider than the prothorax, subparallel in their basal half; the disc coarsely and closely seriate-punctate, 
the suture and the fifth interstice costate; the margins with four rows of moderately coarse impressions, 
- those of the innermost row (the ninth from the suture) coarser and deeper than the others, the interspaces 
feebly transversely wrinkled ; beneath shining, very sparsely, minutely punctured. 
Length ‘5, breadth 23 millim. 
* By G. C. Caampron. 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Coleopt., Vol. VI. Pt. 2, November 1893. ‘yr 
