122 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



LEPYRUS. 



BY JOHN HAMILTON, M. D., ALLEGHENY, PENN. 



The species of Lepyrus in North America have not heretofore been 

 well understood. The genus has recently been treated rnonographically 

 by an American writer, several forms being described for the first time : 

 one of these has since been discovered to be identical with the European 

 capucinus, Schall, and geminatus, Say, to be pahtstris, Scop. To make 

 these species better known is the object of the present paper, and the 

 following synonymy and bibliography are presented : — 



Lepyrus palustris, .Scop., 1763, Entomol. Carniol, t,->,; colon, Linn., 1771, 

 Mant., p. 531; Kirby, Faun. Boreal, IV., 197; Leconte, Mon. Rhyn., p. 127; 

 geminatus, .Say, Lee. ed., I., 273 ; gcniiuatiis, Casey, Ann. N. V. Acad. Sci.,\'III., 825. 



In the work referred to, ^^/^« = palustris, which to that time had 

 been considered common to the two hemispheres, was suppressed, and 

 the American form united with geminatus, the reasons being an alleged 

 more elongate form, much larger and more transverse prothorax carinate 

 along the middle, a carinate beak, and much sparser vestiture. The 

 reasons assigned conclusively prove that the writer was not well 

 acquainted with the European form as a whole, nor even with the 

 American. Such differences do exist, but they are merely individual and 

 apply equally well to the extremes of the individuals of either continent- 

 Here it may be remarked that the European examples usually seen in 

 collections rarely fairly represent the species, being mostly the largest and 

 more conspicuous, which are the most uniform and least characteristic : 

 that most frequently seen here being the form with a long cylindrical 

 sub- or noncarinate beak. That the individuals of this species are very 

 variable in Europe is evident from the number of named varieties in 

 the catalogue, and that the same holds good here may be seen in any 

 collection containing examples from all parts of the Continent where it 

 inhabits. Before me are fifty examples from several localities in Europe 

 (Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, Portugal), exhibiting great diversity 

 in form, size, sculpture and vestiture, but finding counterparts in the 

 American forms before me from Massachusetts, New York, Canada, 

 Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado (Greely, 

 Garland), Nebraska, Manitoba (Winnipeg). The only constant characters 

 I have yet discovered among these diversified forms are in the meso- 

 sternum, which is flat between the coxaj, a little narrower and more 

 triangular in the male than in the female; and in the tibial situation of the 



