NORTH AMERICAN COLEOPTERA. 159 



-des segments exterieurement appreciables et conformes en dessus comme en 

 dessous2 Que Ton nous prouve, comme qnestiou d'anatomie geuerale et 

 transcendante et technique des Staphylinides, qu'il y a 8 pieces, 10 meme 

 (Pand. Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1869, 265) en d?ssus de Tabdomen, cela est fort 

 bien, mais ceci une fois etabli n'enumerons pas dans des descriptions qui 

 doivent etre claires et compr^hensibles pour tou^, et n'assimilons pas aux 

 veritables segments abdominaux ces annexes metathoraciques qui s'arrHent 

 ail niveau des epimeres da metasternum, et qui font corps avec lui 



" Je previens done que j 'en reviens a I'ancienne methode, et que, quelque soit 

 I'allongement on la brievetede I'elytre, le compte des segments abdominaux 

 se fera dans mes descriptions, a partir du premier ventral et de son corres- 

 pondant dorsal, ce qui est la logique et la precision, que Ton ait affaire a un 

 Aleocharien ou a un Omalien." 



These remarks fitly convey my own views and are similar, 

 in substance, to what I should have stated as a result of 

 study and observation. In all my future writings the ven- 

 tral segments will be counted from, and including the first 

 as seen from below, which is the real first segment of the 

 abdomen. 



For an illustration of this structure the reader is referred 

 to the plate at the end of the present paper, Avhere the basal 

 portion of the abdomen of Hesperobium is figured in 

 detail. It is there seen that the first segment has at the 

 base a raised flat margin, rapidly diminishing in length to 

 the median carina, where it almost disappears. It is possi- 

 bly this raised margin Avhicli has been mistaken by several 

 authors for a small basal segment, partially hidden by the 

 posterior margin of the metasternum and the coxa3. 



The true significance of the basal elevation is not appar- 

 ent, unless, perhaps, that it serves to form a closer joint 

 when the abdomen is drawn up, and still allow of a certain 

 amount of flexibility. That it is not the ventral portion of 

 the small membranous or coriaceous posterior segments 

 of the metanotum is abundantly proven by the fact, as 

 shown above by M. Jekel, that these coriaceous parts do 

 not project beyond the metasternum and do not in reality 

 form part of the abdomen; also because the other segments 

 are also provided with an entirely analogous raised basal 



