THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 185 



But, were the country collected over by the mode employed by Professor 



Schmitt, without doubt it would be found to be a common and widely 



distributed species. 



Agabus (Colymbetes) discolor, Harris, New England Farmer, 1828, 164. 

 A.(C.) phceopterus, Kirby, Faun. Bor. Am., 1837, P- 7°> N^- i°2, 

 A. (C.)phceoptertts, Kirby (Mann.), Bui. Nat., Ges. Mosc, 1853, 



159 

 A. discolor, \\ I^ec, An. Lye. Nat. Hist, New York, V., 204, 1852. 



A. obliteratus, Lee, Smith, Cont. XI., 5, i860. 



A. ( Gaurodytes) Lecontei, Horn, pro. A. discolor, \\ Lee, Tr. Am. 



Ent. Soc, IV., 417. 



These forms have been heretofore united and disunited in a variety of 

 ways, and what appears to be the true synonymy seems at present a little 

 clouded. 



Discolor, Harris, has in the Munich catalogue for a synonym 

 phceoptertcs, Kirby, but the reading of the descriptions shows this to be 

 an error. 



A. phceopterus, Kirby, was described from examples taken in lat. 

 54". A form determined by Mannerheim to be this species was taken 

 in Alaska. A. discolor, || Lee, was described from California, and 

 obliteratus, Lee, from Kansas. 



In Dr. Leconte's List of North American Coleoptera, 1863, p. 17, 

 these forms are tabulated thus : — A obliteratus, Lee (2 phceoptertis, 

 Kirby, discolor, 1| Lee), which means that the last two are considered 

 identical, and in case of the identity of obliteratus and phceopterus the 

 latter would have the precedence. 



That discolor, |1 Lee, and obliteratus are quite distinct has been 

 satisfactorily shown by Mr. Crotch, 1. e; and it now remains to show the 

 identity of phceopterus, Mann., and discolor, \\ Lee In 1854, Dr. 

 Leconte sent a large number of Pacific Coast species to Molschulsky for 

 comparison with the types of the Russian authors, and in the autographic 

 letter of Motschulsky, now in my possession, containing the results of his 

 comparisons, dated Jan. 26th, 1855, is written of this species : ^'■Agabus 

 discolor est d'apres, Mannerheim, Ag. phceopterus, Kirby." This, there- 

 fore, would seem to settle the identity of discolor diXid phceopterus, Mann., 

 which Mannerheim in some way came to regard as Kirby's species. Dr. 

 Leconte, in his List, 1. e, appears to have acceded to this. But when in 

 Europe, in 1S70, after an examination of Kirby's types, and giving a short 

 description of the male and female, merely says of this and A. bicolor, 



