H. C. FALL. 109 



The legs vary in length, und tiirough all degrees from stout to 

 slender. The front tibite are always more or less distinctly longer 

 than the others, the middle tibiije being the shortest of the three. 

 The first tarsal joint is usually from two to three times as long as 

 wide ; very rarely {xanthoxyli) as wide as long ; the second and 

 third joints are less elongate, and the last projects to a variable 

 degree beyond the lobes of the third. 



In the majority of species the sexes are well differentiated, but in 

 a considerable number scarcely at all so. The parts sexually modi- 

 fied are the beak, antenntTe, elytra, metasternum, coxje, femora, tibiae 

 and tarsi, all of which are referred to in the proper places. In 

 general, when both sexes are present, the males may be distinguished 

 by the shorter, more coarsely sculptured beak ; and in the vast 

 majority of specimens the position of the tip of the abdomen will 

 reveal the sex — this being yisibly deflected in the male, and more or 

 less retracted in the female. The very frequent rounding of the 

 sutural angles of the elytra in the male, combined with the deflec- 

 tion mentioned, usually exposes the small terminal dorsal segment 

 which is always present in this sex. In a few species — e. g. hercula- 

 num — the abdo uen is, in my experience, always more or less re- 

 tracted at tip, and the presence of the additional segment can only 

 be determined by removing an elytron. 



The chief characters employed by Wencker and other European 

 writers in the arrangement of their species seem to have been the 

 beak — form and length,— claws, insertion of antennjB, color and 

 vestiture, in about that order. With the exception of the form of 

 the claws, I have been unable to use any of these characters for the 

 larger subdivisions of our series. In their stead I have drawn to a 

 considerable extent upon the sexual characters, as seeming to afford 

 a more natural as well as more definite basis for grouping the species. 

 Prof. Smith in his synopsis says: "The tarsal claws seemed at first 

 to offer the most natural division, but while a large part of the spe- 

 cies have the claws dentate in both sexes, and a few seem to have 

 them simple in both sexes, there are some species in \yhich the males 

 have the claws toothed, while the females have them simple." I 

 have in my study been quite unable to detect any appreciable sexual 

 differences of this nature, and am forced to conclude that the sup- 

 posed .sexes of one species were really individuals of different species. 



It may be of interest to say in this connection, that in specimens 

 of the European ulicis and fmcirostre before me I do note a sexual 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. XXV. OCTOBER. 1898. 



