410 Trails. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



veloped and much more distinct than in either of the preced- 

 ing, and, in this as well as the more conical fourth palpal 

 joint, it leads gradually to the two following genera; the 

 oblique ocular grooves are obsolete as in SHcfoUnus. Litho- 

 charodes is widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical 

 regions of North America, from southern Louisiana to South 

 America. From Nicaragua it is represented in my cabinet 

 by a species closely allied to ruficollis but with much sparser 

 punctuation, named fuscipennis by Sharp, — (Tr. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond., 1876, p. 205). It was described originally from the 

 Amazons, but is widely distributed and the type of the 

 genus. 



Dr. Sharp seems to have mistaken the female sexual char- 

 acters in this genus for male, in remarks in the Biologia under 

 such Central American species as spinigera and armata. 

 The more acute abdominal apex characterizes the female, the 

 more obtuse the male. The species are numerous but only 

 three have thus far occurred within our extreme southern 

 limits ; these may be distinguished as follows : — 



Elytra and abdomen more or less pale piceous in color, the prothorax and 

 legs paler and the head and antennae dark, rufo- testaceous; body 

 larger and rather etouter, subparallel, somewhat convex, polished 

 throughout; head large and elongate, very gradually dilated toward 

 base, with the sides feebly arcuate, the angles broadly rounded; punc- 

 tures not very large but deep and close-set, with a narrow median smooth 

 line, rather coarser and less close-set but conspicuous on the under 

 surface, which is not reticulate or strigilate; antennae somewhat longer 

 than the head, with the basal joint almost three-fourths as long as the 

 remainder; prothorax one-half longer than wide, very much narrower 

 than the head, the sides from the rounded anterior angles to the base 

 very strongly converging and nearly straight; punctures rather small 

 but deep and distinct, somewhat close-set; elytra elongate, evidently 

 shorter but wider than the prothorax, narrower than the head, the 

 punctures fine, uniformly but nonserially, rather closely distributed 

 throughout; abdomen narrower than the elytra, parallel, polished, 

 minutely and rather closely but inconspicuously punctured throughout, 

 the fifth segment much shorter than the two preceding combined as 

 usual. Length 5.8 mm.; width 0.8 mm. Texas (Austin). 



pallidas n. sp. 



Elytra and abdomen black to piceous -black, the head and prothorax paler 

 though dark piceo-rufous; legs very pale, the antennae more dusky, 

 rufous; body rather smaller and notably more slender than In pallidus ; 

 head narrower, relatively more elongate behind the antennae, somewhat 



