HENTZ TO HARRIS. 



UNIVERSITY OF N. C., Nov. 18, 1829. 



You must excuse me for having forgotten your sketch of 

 Ropaloceros fasciatus. At the time I received your letter I 

 did not know the insect, and I have a bad memory for de- 

 scriptions only ; though your Boletobius montanus, sketched in 

 the same letter, I recognized at first sight, when I received the 

 insect from you. My 776 is not only congeneric, but may 

 belong to the same species with your insect. I have only two 

 $ and one 9 , or what I suppose to be such. I will send you 

 one $ , and if it be of the .same species with yours, I shall be 

 glad to know it. 



I have not your Thanasimus ; but I shall be glad to receive 

 from you all the information you can give me on that family. 

 I am as much puzzled as ever to fix on some certain characters 

 to divide it. I have now a little insect, collected last summer, 

 which in all respects answers to the characters of Thanasimus, 

 except in the palpi, which are not securiform, but all filiform. 

 It may belong to Pelecophorus Dejean, but I am not acquainted 

 with that genus. Its length is only .15, its breadth about .05. 

 Its color is piceous ; the mouth is ferruginous, the antennas are 

 pale, except the last three joints. The elytra have large and 

 deep punctures arranged in regular striae ; interstitial spaces 

 very narrow, and often interrupted. There is a lunule on the 

 disk near the base, a common band on the middle, which ad- 

 vances to a point on the suture towards the base, and a little 

 dot near the apex, of a pale yellow. The thighs are pale. The 

 insect being small, and a unique, I have not dissected it. The 

 palpi are thus: <**- Last joint blackish. And though the 

 tarsi appear to be disposed as in Thanasimus, I can see only 

 four joints ; but I have not placed it under a microscope for 

 fear of injuring it. 



I found this fall in a Boletus, two specimens of a 



