108 GEO. II. HORN, M. D. 



Smoky Hill, Kansas, in the flowers of a Malvacequs plant. It is quite 

 a common species in Europe and was probably introduced with some 

 plant in which it lives. 



A. seueogaster L. et G. — Form rather broad, depressed, piceous or black, 

 Surface with faint aeneous lustre, very rarely green. Head densely punctate 

 reticulate, with very short pubescence. Thorax transverse, sides feebly arcuate 

 in front, nearly straight at middle, slightly sinuate posteriorly, the hind angles 

 acutely rectangular, disc moderately convex, usually with four fovese arranged in 

 an arcuate transverse series, sometimes with two only, often without trace of any, 

 surface normally coarsely reticulate, often however subgranular or even slightly 

 longitudinally strigose on each side of the middle. Elytra gradually narrowed 

 from the apical third, the tips obtuse, surface rather coarsely granulate punctate 

 and with a faint oblique impression extending from the humeri toward the middle 

 of the suture. Beneath more or less aeneous and more shining than above, the 

 prothorax variably reticulate, the body and abdomen coarsely punctate. Claws 

 simjile. Length .14 — .28 inch; 3.6 — 7 mm. 



At the time of the publication of the " Revision of the Buprestidae "' 

 by Dr. LeConte, the number of specimens before him did not exceed ten, 

 these formed the basis of the six names which appear in the Revision, 

 five of them represented by uniques. Since that time the amount of 

 material has considerably increased and the selected specimens represent- 

 ing all shades of variation in his cabinet and mine now number about 

 eighty, which represent many hundreds of specimens from which selec- 

 tions were made. The result of this accumulation has been the demon- 

 stration of the identity of those forms which Crotch had already placed 

 as varieties in the Check List. 



The surface lustre of the vast majority of the specimens is brownish- 

 bronze, specimens however occur in the Yosemite Valley of California 

 as brilliantly green as deleta or quercata. The latter form, which for 

 convenience may be called prasina, is rather rare, I have seen but 

 eight, these however exhibit the same thoracic variations observed in 

 the darker forms. The specimens with bronze surface vary in the form 

 and sculpture of the thorax. Three forms inornata, foveicollis and im- 

 perfecta, are absolutely identical, these have the four thoracic fovea? well 

 marked, in the manner of some European forms. These foveas become 

 gradually fainter in retifera and expansa and are finally lost in strigata. 

 Specimens often occur with the middle foveas well marked and the lateral 

 obsolete or entirely wanting. The surface sculpture of the thorax also 

 varies in a gradual manner. In strigata the sides are distinctly reticulate, 

 the middle much more finely and the lines of the reticulation forming 

 short longitudinal strigae. From this we have every gradation to the 

 granular form, through forms like retifera in which the entire surface is 

 reticulate to those simply granulate without reticulation. The existence 



