48 BULLETIN 18 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



National Museum, 1 in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 23 from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, and 56 collected by 

 me in 1935-37. 



Remarks. — There has been much confusion concerning this species. 

 The following summary is presented in the hope of correcting this: 



In 1821 Dalman described the species from "Guadeloupe"; in 1823 

 he redescribed it from the same locality ; and in 1828 LePeletier and 

 Serville described it from the same place. In 1832 Gray described 

 a supposedly new genus, which he called Trichocoryne and which he 

 based on a species "from the West Indies" of which be remarked, 

 "It appears to be the same as . . . Zirophonis peniciUahis''^ but 

 which he figured on plate 32 as ^^Trichocoryne striata, G. R. Gray" 

 (this is clearly a case of a stillborn synonym, but confusion arose 

 because he also figures on plate 52 a species he calls Zirophonis 

 striaius Leach, which is quite a different insect. In 1834 Castelnau 

 cited striata Gray as synonym of Piestus hicornis Olivier (this was 

 a mistake for the striata of Leach but gave rise erroneously to the 

 record of Colombia for striata Gray) ; Castelnau further cited peni- 

 cillatus erroneously as a synonym of P. siilcatus Gravenhorst, thereby 

 involving the sulcatus records of Cuba, Cayenne, and Brazil, which 

 of course do not apply to the true penicillatus Dalman. In 1840 

 Erichson cited penicillatus from Puerto Rico and St. Bartholomew, 

 giving Dalman as the source of the latter (this is presumably an 

 error for Guadeloupe) ; he further described a new species he called 

 erythropus from Cuba and to which he attached as a synonym striata 

 Gray (since striata Gray was above proved to be a synonym of 

 penicillatus, then erythropus must likewise be a synonym of it). In 

 1857 DuVal and in 1863 Fauvel considered erythropus from Cuba 

 as a valid species. In 1865 Fauvel cited penicillatus from the same 

 islands as Erichson (merely copying the error of St. Bartholomew) 

 and cited erythropus from "Santo-Domingo; Cuba; Opelousas, Mex- 

 ique," with stHata Gray as synonym. In 1887 Sharp threw doubt 

 on the Mexican recoi'd but left the species valid ; and finally in 1910 

 Bernhauer and Schubert accepted erythropus (with synonym striata 

 Gray) from "Antillen, Mexiko," and penicillatus from "Mexiko, 

 Brasilien" (this last record must be either an error or based upon 

 new material, and the type locality is omitted). The uniting of 

 erythropus with penicillatics in the present study leaves us with un- 

 questioned records for the one species from Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, 

 Cuba, and Hispaniola, and my collections extend these throughout 

 the islands to Trinidad. 



This species is somewhat variable in the extent of the traces of 

 the sixth stria. 



