NORTH AMERICAN" BUPRESTID BEETLES 107 



New Jersey: Hewitt, June; Newfoundland, July; Lakehurst, July (Joutel). 

 Buena Vista (Liebeck). Clementon, May 30 (Greene). Sea Isle, June 

 (Boerner). Husted, May (Weiss); Otco (Wenzel). Fort Lee (Schaeffer). 



New York : West Point. 



North Carolina: Southern Pines (Manee) ; Tryon {erTOV=fuscipennis Gory). 



Oregon: Josephine County, May 8 (Nunenniacher) ; Grants Pass, July 9. 



Rhode Island: Providence, April 12. 



Variations. — There is scarcely any variation in the form and color 

 in the examples examined, and as a rule the sides of the pronotum are 

 more densely pubescent anteriorly than toward the posterior angles, 

 but occasionally a specimen will be found with the sides uniformly 

 pubescent. The claws are more deeply cleft in some examples than 

 in others, and the inner tooth is slightly turned inward, but they 

 should not be placed with those species having the tips contiguous, 

 as in all of the examples examined the tips were widely separated. 

 Horn states that the presternum in the female is less densely punc- 

 tured and more shining than in the male, but this seems to be more 

 of an individual variation than sexual. 



Hosts. — The larvae of this species attacks the roots and lower 

 trunk of service berry or shad bush (Avielanchier canadensis (Lin- 

 naeus) Medicus), wild thorn {Crataegus sp.), apple, pear, wild crab 

 (Pyrus spp.), and the adults have been found a number of times feed- 

 ing on the foliage of the choke cherry (Primus sp.) which is probably 

 also a host for the larvae. 



This species is closely allied to audax Horn and benjamini Fisher, 

 but can be separated from both of these species by the propleurae, 

 metapleurae, mesopleurae, and coxae not being densely pubescent. 



32. AGRILUS BENJAMINI, new species 

 Figure 25 



Agrilus audax Chamberlin, Cat. Buprestidae, 1926, p. 52 (part). 



Male. — Form resembling vittaticollis Randall ; head and pronotum 

 black, with a feeble purplish red tinge, and subopaque ; elytra black, 

 opaque; beneath black, with a feeble aeneous reflection, and strongly 

 shining. 



Head with the front wide, slightly wider at top than at bottom, 

 very deeply and broadly concave on the vertex and occiput, lateral 

 margins feebly, arcuately expanded at middle, and with a narrow, 

 longitudinal groove extending from the occiput . to epistoma ; surface 

 finely, closely rugose, densely, finely punctate between the rugae, and 

 densely clothed on lower half with long, recumbent, yellowish and 

 reddish-yellow pubescence; epistoma rather narrow between the 

 antennae, and broadly, deeply emarginate in front; antennae extend- 

 ing to middle of pronotum, serrate from the fourth joint, and the 

 2305— 28 8 



