63 



Now liere is a great difficulty. The generic characters of Fab- 

 ricius are insufficient, and he himself did not attend to them 

 very frequently ; therefore my 448 may have been referred by 

 him to the genus Mycetoijliagus. Is it not possible that Illiger, 

 or whoever referred M. hicolor to Eustrophus, took my 751, or 

 some other undescribcd species to which Fabricius's description 

 might apply, as well as many more that I have ? After all, 

 my names may be well applied. He says the insect is glabrous, 

 which does not apply as well to my 751 as to my 448. As you* 

 always follow Latreille's system, you probably had in view his 

 genus JS'IiicetopliaguB (Regne Anim. 833). But I do not see 

 how 807 could be placed in the family which contains Trogosites. 

 All these insects seem to me to belong naturally to the heter- 

 omerous division. 



Since writing the above I have been in the woods, and dis- 

 covered one more species of the same genus. I have nov/ 

 seven distinct ones. The 9 are apparently tetramerous, the $ 

 have four joints in the tarsi of the second and third pair of legs, 

 but the hand has but three visible joints. The 

 first is much wider and larger than all the rest 

 together, and furnished with pnlvilli, formed by 

 stout bristles. At first sight it has the appear- 

 Fig. 10. ance of the tarsi in Staphylinus. I have studied 

 carefully all these insects, which offer precisely the same char- 

 acters in the $ and 9 . Only one is so very small that my best 

 o-lasses cannot render it indubitable that its conformation is the 

 same ; though I am pretty certain that it is. I do not know 

 Latreille's genus, and therefore may be mistaken in my opinion ; 

 would you persist in thinking that it belongs to Mycetophagus 

 Latr. ? 



As you suppose, the spring has appeared, though very late. 

 For this climate the winter has been unusually severe. I have, 

 however, already collected several new and interesting insects. 

 I have had a little axe made for me, and I go, like a wopd- 

 cutter, splitting and cutting all the old trees I can find. 



