THE NEGRO BUGS. 59 



mainly on grasses, weeds and low shrubs along the edges of 

 cultivated fields and roadsides, whereas the Cydnids are mostly 

 terrestrial and ammophilous, burrowing insects found mainly 

 in the vicinity of water. I have therefore followed Uhler and 

 Banks in retaining the Corimelaenidae as a separate family. 



Several species of these small black bugs are very plentiful 

 and sometimes injurious to vegetation. They resemble certain 

 beetles, especially some of the Histeridae, in form and color 

 and have been sent to me on a number of occasions as Coleop- 

 tera for naming. The principal literature treating of our 

 eastern species is by Dallas, 1851; Uhler, 1876; Van Duzee, 

 1904, 1923; Malloch, 1919; Hussey, 1925. 



KEY TO GENERA OF CORIMELJEXID.E. 



a. Side margins of pronotum and abdomen ciliate with long hairs; hind 

 tibia? with long spines on five surfaces. I. Cydnoides, p. 59. 



act. Side margins of body not ciliate. 



b. Costal margin of corium wholly black, bordered within by a distinct 

 groove; femora armed beneath with short, stout, preapical spines; 

 hind tibiae with long spines on five surfaces. 



II. Galgupha, p. 61. 

 bb. Costal margin usually in part ivory-white, without an inner groove; 

 femora with only a few fine bristles; hind tibiae with short, 

 widely separated spines on four surfaces. 



III. CORIMEL^ENA. p. 65. 



I. Cydnoides Malloch, 1919, 207. 



Small hemispherical or oval convex species, possessing the 

 characters of the family as above given and having the mar- 

 gins of the body ciliate ; femora without spines, but bearing 

 several bristly hairs ; elytra relatively broad, their tips oblique, 

 obtuse ; hind tibiae with five rows of long spines. Four of the 

 22 recorded North American species of the family belong to 

 this genus, two of them occurring in the eastern states, the 

 other two, sayi Van D. and obtusa Uhler, in the southwest. 



KEY TO EASTERN SPECIES OF CYDNOIDES. 



a. Color purplish-black without white markings; form rounded. 



21. CILIATUS. 



aa. Color shining black, the base of corium and clavus with a large 

 ivory-white spot; form oval. 22. renormatus. 



21 (32). Cydnoides ciliatus (Uhler), 1863, 156. 



Rounded or hemispherical, convex above, subdepressed beneath. 

 Above black, faintly bronzed or tinged with purple, subopaque; antennae 



