62 PROCEEDINGS OP THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.82 



Food plant. — Unknown. 



Remarks. — This is the most curious and probably one of the rarest 

 of North American species of Disonycha. In its dull black coloring 

 and heavy antennae it is suggestive of Oedionychis lugens. So few 

 specimens are known to the writer that each is worthy of mention. 

 There are three specimens in the old Harris collection in the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, taken in Brighton, Mass., in a dry pas- 

 ture under a stone on October 26, 1839. Two specimens are in the 

 LeConte collection at Cambridge, one of which bears the same label 

 as those in the Harris series, and the other is without label. There 

 is one specimen in the Bowditch collection labeled Colorado, which 

 is doubtless a mistake as it might easily have been confused in some 

 collection with Oedionychis lugens^ which occurs in that locality, 

 and later wrongly labeled. There are 2 specimens in the Horn col- 

 lection, 1 from Georgia and 1 without label. C. A. Frost possesses 

 a specimen taken by A. P. Morse at Wellesley, Mass., and there is 

 one at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station taken 

 at Old Lyme, Conn. H. P. Loding collected a specimen at Mobile, 

 Ala. In the National Museum are two specimens, one collected by 

 E. J. Smith at Sherborn, Mass., and secured for the Museum by 

 C. A. Frost, and the other, presented to the Museum by W. L. 

 McAtee, was found in the stomach of a quail {Colinus vlrglnianus) 

 collected by H. M. Hanna, February 2, 1927, at Melrose Planta- 

 tion, Thomas County, Ga. 



31. DISONYCHA BREVICORNIS Schaeffer 



Plate 8, Figure 42 



Disonycha brevicornis Schaeffer, Journ. New York Ent. Soc, vol. 39, p. 281, 

 1931 (Colorado; type in collection Charles Schaeffer). 



Description. — Small (5.8 mm), not depressed, oblong, faintly shin- 

 ing, yellow, head with occipital band, tubercles, and labrum dark, 

 pronotum heavily spotted, elytra with usual median, sutural, and 

 submarginal vittae; body beneath dark with base of femora, the 

 tibiae, and the tarsi dark. Head with interocular space more than 

 half width of head ; smooth except for a few coarse punctures on 

 sides near eye; tubercles distinct, interantennal area slightly pro- 

 duced; a broad, dark, occipital band extending to and covering 

 tubercles; carina in part and labrum dark. Antennae extending to 

 a little below humeri, dark with paler basal joints, fourth longer 

 than third and fifth, which are subequal. Prothorax scarcely twice 

 as broad as long, without callosities, sides arcuate, narrowed ante- 

 riorly; surface finely alutaceous and finely punctate; 5 pronotal 

 spots, the 3 median tending to coalesce and the 2 lateral ones large. 



