10 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



NOTES ON SMICRONYX WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF A 

 NEW SPECIES AND A NEW VARIETY. 



UV W. S. BLATCHLEV, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA. 



Among some specimens of Smicronyx sent me about a year 

 ago by Ccl. Thos. L. Casey, of Washington, D. C, was one bearing 

 the label, "S. vestitus Lee. from Indiana." This species was de- 

 scribed by LeConte* from a single Kansas specimen. A com- 

 parison of Col. Casey's specimen with the type in the LeConte 

 collection at Cambridge shows the latter to be much larger and 

 more robust, with head, beak and thorax wholly black, elytra dull 

 reddish; scales large, close-set and evenly distributed; thorax" 

 wider than long; elytra with distinct, coarse inclined setie. Le- 

 Conte gives its form, colour and vestiture as: " Rather robust, con- 

 \ex, black very densely clothed with grayish and yellowish broadly 

 oval scales; antenna^ and legs ferruginc^us brown." He states that 

 the intervals are flat, each with a row of whitish hairs, and gives 

 the length as 2.75 mm., all of which characters agree with his 

 Kansas type. Both Col. Casey and Dr. Dietz have misinterpreted 

 LeConte's species, as neither one had the type before him when 

 describing the species they call vestitus in their papers on the 

 genus, t and Dietz, loc. cit., p. 160, criticizes Dr. LeConte's de- 

 scription as "defecti\e and misleading, as the terms 'robust' and 

 'prothorax densely and coarsely punctured' do not apply here, nor 

 is any reference made to the reddish colour of the elvtra." 



t 



Since the species they called vestitus is evidently undcscribed, I 

 have prepared the following description from the specimen sent me 

 by Col. Casey and from others labelled "vestitus" by Dietz, and 

 now in his collection at Cambridge: 



Smicronyx caseyi, sp. nov. 



Elongate-oval, slender. Head, thorax, suture of elytra and 

 under surface black; beak, antennae, legs, apex of thorax and elytra 

 except suture pale reddish-brown; above sparsely clothed with 



* Proc. .Am. Phil. Soc, XV, 1876, 172. 



t Casev, -Ann. X. Y. Acad. Sci., VI, 1892, 393; Dietz, Trans, Am. Ent. Soc., 

 XXI, 1894, 1.59. 

 January, 19,' fi 



