276 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



and one in Lower California, I have never yet seen a specimen 

 collected in California or Oregon. Dr. Sharp has described 

 numerous species from Mexico, but the European representa- 

 tives appear to be much less numerous than the American, 

 though this may be due largely to lack of systematic study of 

 the palaearctic species, as the known genera are about twice 

 as numerous as those of North America. In the latter region 

 the richness of the subtribe may be realized when it is con- 

 sidered that a collection made in the Catskill Mountains by 

 H. H. Smith, now forming a part of my cabinet, contains 

 fourteen species from that limited area alone. 



The body in this subtribe is small to very minute in size, 

 of more or less stout fusiform outline and compact, rather 

 convex build, the integuments generally pale in color with 

 darker marking and very thin and diaphanous as a rule, fre- 

 quently becoming distorted in drying, though this applies 

 more particularly to Gyrophaena and Phanerota, the exoskel- 

 eton being normally thick in the other genera. The hypo- 

 mera are feebly inflexed and visible from the sides in all the 

 genera except Brachida and Encephalus, where they are 

 strongly inflexed and invisible from a lateral point of view, 

 and the scutellum is well developed and flat, varying but 

 little throughout. The antennae are variable within generic 

 limits in Gyrophaena only, as here considered, seldom not- 

 ably long and always bristle with coarse erect setae, the four 

 basal joints being slender and usually forming a distinctly 

 demarcated pedestal or stem for the stouter apical part, 

 though in several genera and in one group, assumed for con- 

 venience to form a part of Gyrophaena ^ where the antennae 

 are gradually incrassate distally, this is not so evident ; the 

 third joint is always distinctly longer than the fourth, which 

 is generally much the smallest, but in Diestota, the fourth 

 joint in size and vestiture belongs with the apical rather than 

 the basal part. The maxillary palpi are rather short, sparsely 

 setose, with the third joint more or less compressed and the 

 fourth extremely slender and acicular. The legs are short or 

 moderate, the four basal joints of the hind tarsi equal or 

 with the first somewhat longer than the others ; the claws are 



