22O MEMOIRS ON THE COLEOPTERA 



closely related to Brachysomida, but it can be inferred, at least, that 

 the two are not identical from the fact that in the type of Dinoptera, 

 the prothorax is much more elongate and usually bright red, while 

 in Brachysomida, the head and prothorax are invariably intense 

 black, the only parts subject to color variation being the elytra, 

 abdomen, legs and antennae; these variations are of no value, even 

 as fixing varieties or so-called aberrations; the antennae in Dinoptera 

 collaris are. much longer than in Brachysomida. 



Brachysomida n. gen. 



The species of this genus are exceedingly numerous, so much so 

 that the variety of form, or the apparent instability, revealed by 

 successive arrivals of new material, led Dr. LeConte to believe 

 that those he had described were in great part united by inter- 

 mediates, and he thereupon proceeded to suppress many of them, 

 refraining at the same time from defining any more, so that only 

 about a third of the species now in my collection have ever been 

 described. But LeConte did injustice to the realities of nature in 

 thus suppressing so much of his more discriminative work, whatever 

 the external influences or internal reasoning that may have moved 

 him; in short, the proportion of synonymy now accredited to him 

 in the lists, almost everywhere in the Coleoptera and even where 

 self-imposed, is somewhat largely without warrant and untrue, as 

 is fast becoming evident.* 



I have not attempted to indicate other than a specific status for 

 more than a few of the following forms, for as they are all amply 

 distinct in appearance, I am uncertain which to regard as species 

 under the present day ultra-radical conception of that term, and 

 which to put in subordinate station, leaving such questions for 

 future determination. It can only be said that those forms, as for 

 instance trinitatis, that I have personally been able to collect in 

 considerable number in their native environment, betray no marked 

 variability beyond the mysterious color dimorphism characterizing 

 the genus, the majority of the examples of that species of both sexes 

 having uniform deep blue elytra, while about a third of them have 

 uniform pale red-brown elytra, without intermediates in color, 



* Mr. Pierce, of the National Museum, has recently found it necessary to rein- 

 state several of the LeContean species of Thecesternus, that were suppressed by the 

 author himself. 



