II STUDIES IN SOME STAPHYLINID GENERA OF 



NORTH AMERICA. 



The present opportunity is taken to publish some interesting 

 new species in the family Staphylinidae. Most museums, public 

 and private accumulate in course of time a considerable number 

 of species that prove to be undescribed, and it seems desirable to 

 make these known, as rapidly as may be convenient, in order that 

 literature shall keep abreast of the increasing collections. 



Family STAPHYLINID^. 



Subfamily MYLLAENIN.E. 



Tribe GYMNUSINI 



Gymnusa Grav. 



The following is an exceedingly interesting addition to our fauna 

 in this subfamily. It, as well as many other undescribed species, 

 was taken, unfortunately however as a unique, after years of 

 collecting near a small brook, meandering southward across the 

 lane from the ancient house so far as anything in America may 

 be termed ancient on the still older family farm of the writer, to 

 the main road through Boston Neck, Rhode Island, this being the 

 local name of a tongue of land extending southward between the 

 Pettaquamscot River and Narragansett Bay, the river having 

 its outlet just above Narragansett Pier:* 



Gymnusa grandiceps n. sp. Form broad and oblong, depressed, the 

 abdomen obtusely acuminate posteriorly; color black, the side margins 

 of the prothorax and the abdomen, apically, pallescent, the legs piceo- 

 testaceous; lustre dull, the anterior parts more shining; head large, about 

 three-fifths as wide as the prothorax, glabrous, convex and polished, 

 the eyes moderate; antennae very slender and filiform, extending almost 



* This region is rather peculiar in its short scrubby vegetation of bayberries, black- 

 berries, huckleberries and profusion of many other shrubs, great variety of small 

 plants within limited areas, very light soil and a prodigious number of boulders left 

 by the receding ice perhaps ten thousand years ago. All the localities cited under the 

 name "Boston Neck," in the descriptions of the writer, refer to this tract of land. 



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