354 AMERICAN PACHYBRACHYS (cOLEOPTERA) 



Antennae long, attaining the middle of the abdomen in the male, yellow, outer 

 joints blackish. 



Prothorax rather large, distinctly narrowed in front, sides rather strongly 

 arcuate posteriorly, rounded in somewhat at base, more noticeably so in the 

 male, punctuation moderately coarse, not dense, side margins smooth. 



Elytra twice as long as the prothorax and shghtly wider, punctures confused 

 in the scutellar region, striae two to eight more or less regular, the eighth with 

 or without a subhumeral dislocation; marginal interspace with very few punc- 

 tures, usually near the base, but occasionally one or two may be at or behind 

 the middle; shield usually ill-defined but occasionally quite distinct. 



Pygidium yellow with small black spots, which are occasionally wanting. 

 Body beneath black with the usual pale abdominal margins more or less 

 developed. Legs pale, femora with median brownish spots. 



Length 3.2.5 to 3.75 mm.; width 1.8 to 2 mm. 



Distribution. — The locality given by Say is Missouri, which as 

 is well known means the Plains of Western Kansas or Nebraska 

 or possibly Eastern Colorado. The specimens before me bear 

 the following locality labels: 



Manitoba: Winnipeg (Wickham Coll.). South Dakota: Erwin, June (Van 

 Dyke Coll.). Nebraska: McCook (Wickham). Kansas: Hamilton, Morton 

 and Clark Cos. (Snow); McPherson and Sahna, June (Knaus). Colorado: 

 "Col" (Van Dyke Coll.); Greeley and La Junta (Bowditch Coll. as roiundi- 

 collis). Texas: Bowditch Coll. as rotundicollis. 



It cannot be positively asserted that this is the true abdominalis 

 of Say but I have little doubt of it. It fits the short description 

 sufficiently well, and rather better than any other; it is from the 

 same region, and is the species so identified by LeConte. Bow- 

 ditch describes the present species under the name rotundicollis 

 and identifies abdominalis differently. A specimen in the Snow 

 Coll. of what I consider to be the western form of peccans, and 

 one of diversus n. sp. in the Blanchard Coll. bear the name 

 abdominalis in Bowditch's handwriting. This confusion — if it 

 be such — is not strange, for the species peccans is very variable 

 in its wide range, and in some of its western forms approaches 

 both abdominalis and diversus so closely as to make the placing 

 of some examples purely a matter of individual judgment, and 

 to suggest specific identity of the three. The extremes, however, 

 look very different, and it is probable that there are really three 

 distinct species — perhaps more — although I am not now able to 

 definitely draw the lines of separation. 



