STAPHYLINID.E 229 



antennal club not darker in color than the stem and very much 

 more abruptly formed than in any other of our species; it is also 

 the most minute of the Oligotini known to me, though not much 

 smaller than lustrans. 



Oligota Mann. 



Relatively speaking, this genus does not seem to be quite so 

 developed in America as in Europe and the various forms are rather 

 feebly differentiated, so that as a group they form a far less inter- 

 esting study than the preceding genus. In the recent European 

 catalogue, Somatium is inscribed as a simple subgenus of Oligota, 

 but I can see no very good ground for this, as the subparallel to 

 linear form of Oligota enables one to differentiate it at once from 

 the oval stout Somatium, and the eyes are more developed in the 

 latter than in Oligota, where they do not attain the base of the head. 

 In the catalogue referred to, the ten species described by Rey are 

 all given as synonyms of other forms; this would be remarkable if 

 true, and I strongly suspect some oversight on the part of the 

 compilers of the catalogue. 



The species accredited to LeConte, under the name Oligota 

 pedalis, is given as a synonym of pumilio Kies., in the European 

 catalogue. From the mountains of Pennsylvania I have a consid- 

 erable series of examples, collected by the late P. Jerome Schmitt, 

 which bear a very strong resemblance to the European representa- 

 tive of pumilio in my cabinet, and therefore assume that they are 

 the true pedalis of LeConte, but cannot endorse the proposed syn- 

 onymy, as there are many points of difference, among which may be 

 mentioned the much closer punctures and larger head of the Ameri- 

 can form. The following is allied to pedalis Lee.: 



Oligota puncticollis n. sp. Moderately stout, convex and shining, 

 black, the abdominal tip flavate to near the base of the large fifth tergite, 

 the legs pale; punctures of the head fine, of the pronotum strong, asperate 

 and close, of the elytra coarsely asperate and rather close, the abdomen 

 smoother, with coarse imbricate sculpture; pubescence somewhat 

 long, pale and coarse but sparse and decumbent; head rather large, wider 

 than long, almost two-thirds as wide as the prothorax, the eyes at two- 

 fifths their length from the base; antennae short, pale throughout, the 

 second joint as thick as the first and two-thirds longer, much longer and 

 one-half thicker than either of the next two, three to seven increasing 

 but very slightly, seven wider than long, the club abrupt, the eighth and 

 ninth joints moderately transverse, the last gradually obtusely pointed 



