STAPHYLINID.E 4 2 1 



punctures; abdomen parallel, finely and very closely punctate; sixth 

 ventral (cf ) with a small shallow apical sinus, four or five times as 

 wide as deep, the adjacent surface feebly impressed for a short dis- 

 tance; hind tarsi rather stout, the fifth joint slender. Length (cf 9 ) 

 9.0 mm.; width 1.8-1.85 rnm. Indiana (Wyandotte Cave) and 

 Colorado (Florissant), Cockerell. [Quedius spelceus Horn]. 



spelaeus Horn 



A Form still stouter, somewhat larger in size, similar in general 

 characters, in color and lustre; head large, rather wider than long, 

 the eyes convex and prominent at twice their length from the base 

 in both sexes; tempora and dorsal foveae as in spelams; antennae 

 blackish, pale basally, thick but filiform, the joints all at least as 

 long as wide; prothorax as in spel&us but less narrowed apically 

 and with the lateral deplanate margin narrower and extending to 

 the apical angles; elytra and abdomen similar in relative form and 

 size but with the sculpture still finer and denser; sixth ventral (cf) 

 with the apex sinuato-truncate, the median sinus being broad and 

 with just visible curvature; tarsi nearly similar; female smaller 

 than the male, and with notably smaller head. Length (d 71 9 ) 

 8.5-10.0 mm.; width 1.9-2.1 mm. Manitoba (Aweme), Criddle. 



quadriceps n. subsp. 



The head is much larger in the male of quadriceps than in that 

 of spel&us and the sinus at the apex of the sixth ventral is rather 

 broader and still very much more feeble, but I have noticed con- 

 siderable variability in the degree of this sinus in some other species, 

 and, in view of the general very great similarity of the two forms, 

 do not care at present to give them more than varietal or subspecific 

 relationship.* 



Megaquedius n. gen. 



If any of the groups formed above from the old supergenus 

 Quedius has a value indisputably generic, it would appear that 

 explanatus Lee., ought to have that status, along with such other 

 very isolated divisional types as Icevigatus, ferox and vernix. Mega- 

 quedius, unlike the last two just mentioned, is not monotypic, but 

 includes several species, rather closely allied among themselves it is 



* Mr. Fall has described (Can. Ent. 1912, p. 40) a Quedius compransor, which prob- 

 ably constitutes a special generic or subgeneric group in this vicinity. The characters 

 which chiefly distinguish it from Quediochrus, are the coloration of the body, the 

 head and prothorax being black, the posteriorly broadened form of the head, probably 

 somewhat as in explanatus and, as in that species, small and not at all prominent 

 eyes, and the broadly interrupted infra-lateral cephalic carina. The species is so 

 exceptional, besides, in having no trace of the usual two discal series of two or three 

 pronotal punctures, that I would propose for it the divisional name Anastictodera 

 (n. gen.). Compransor lives in the burrows of the "pocket gopher" in Kansas. 



