184 COCCINELLLD.E. 



Izucar, Puebla, Jalapa (Edge), Vera Cruz, Playa Vicente, Yolos (Salle) ; Guatemala, 

 El Reposo (Champion). 



This insect occurred singly for the most part at each of the localities given, and does 

 not appear ever to be common. 



The head is entirely yellow in the male, and the thorax in the same sex has the 

 anterior margin and angles very narrowly margined with yellow. 



The figure is taken from a male from Jalapa, where Hoge met with both sexes. 



3. Thalassa glauca. 



Menoscelis glauca, Muls. Spec. Col. Trim, secur. p. 510 \ 



Thalassa glauca, Crotch, Rev. Coccin. p. 209 2 . 



Thalassa reyi, Muls. Spec. Col. Trim, secur. p. 515 ( £ ) 3 . 



Eab. Guatemala (Salle), near the city (Champion), Tepan (Conradt); Costa Rica 

 (Van Patten). — South Amekica 1 , Brazil 2 3 . 



This insect varies somewhat in colour, the blue specimens being probably the 

 males. 



Our examples have yellow heads, but in nearly all the head is greenish at the base 

 and on the inner side of the eyes. 



BRACHYACANTHA. 



Brachyacantha, Chevrolat, in d'Orbigny's Diet. Univ. d'Hist. Nat. ii. p. 705 (1842) ; Mulsant, 

 Spec. Col. Trim, secur. p. 520 ; Crotch, Rev. Cocc. p. 210 ; Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. iv. p. 377 ; 

 Chapuis, Gen. Col. xii. p. 228. 



Brachyacantha consists of a little group of species which, with two exceptions, are 

 peculiar to the northern continent of America, and are remarkable for their strong 

 resemblance in form, as well as in structure, to some genera of Phytophaga, especially, 

 perhaps, to those of the Cryptocephalinae, such as Monachus and Scolochrus. The 

 genus is not well separated from Eyperaspis, both Crotch and Chapuis referring to the 

 arming of the front tibiae with a spine as a permanent distinction. Good sexual 

 characters, however, exist in several species of Brachyacantha on the underside of the 

 ventral segments. No author, excepting Crotch for one species (B. dentines), appears 

 to have noticed these. About twenty species have been described ; but from the undue 

 importance given by Mulsant and others to the markings alone, it is clear that several 

 of these can only be regarded as varieties. The males of the species of the whole sub- 

 family may generally be recognized by their yellow heads, and the paler colouring of 

 their legs and other parts ; but the structural characters above alluded to, and the 

 presence of an additional segment (the seventh ventral one), should always be noticed. 

 The absence of a basal marginal line to the thorax is, I think, quite illusory, for 



