68 CASEY 



17 — Form and coloration nearly as in fom/)or/«A- but much smaller, metallic- 

 purplish, shining, the pubescence fine, short and sparse; head coarsely, 

 unevenly and coniluently punctate; antennic (?) unusually short; 

 prothorax moderately transverse, convex, narrowed anteriorly, irregu- 

 larly and coarsely j)unctate, the punctures conlluent laterally with large 

 rugosities, the broad median s])acc simply irregularly and rather 

 sparsely pumtate; hind angles right; elytra of the usual form, having 

 small irregular smooth places and also finely ])unctate, the punctures 

 somewhat regularly serial suturally but confused laterally and apically, 

 where they become somewhat transversely continent though still not 

 dense; meso- and metasternal side-j)ieces not coarsely but subcon- 

 fluently punctate; abdomen rather finely, subrugosely punctured at the 

 sides; anterior tibia' very slightly arcuate, the intermediate and j)os- 

 terior nearly straight. Length 11. 5-13.0 mm. Utah (Thadburn's 

 Ranch) juniperinus Wick. 



The sexual characters in this genus are feeble, and, although the 

 male is generally a little smaller and narrower than the female — 

 sometimes notably so, the readiest way to distinguish the sexes is by 

 the structure of the antenna', all the joints being elongate in the male, 

 the outer ones becoming raj)i(lly shorter in the female. The anterior, 

 and sometimes also the intermediate, tibiie are arcuate, being more or 

 less serrulate within in the male, but the anterior are simply more or 

 less bent in the female. My cotype of juuipcrhius, very kindly sent 

 to me by Prof. Wickham, is a female measuring 11.5 by 4.0 mm. in 

 size; the species is peculiar in having the internal margins of the eyes 

 so feebly converging posteriorly, this character having been first 

 noticed by the original de.scribcr. The locality of carolincnsis Horn, 

 is open to the gravest doubt, esjiccially when we consider its perfectly 

 normal type of form, coloration and sculpture. I am of the opinion 

 that no species of Gyascutus occurs beyond the desert Sonoran prov- 

 inces. On comparing compactus with what purported to be a speci- 

 men of carolincnsis in the LeConte cabinet, I found the latter to be 

 very similar, though rather less robust and with tiio scant i)ubcscence 

 more vittate in arrangement on the elytra. In comj>arison with Ilip- 

 pontclas, Stictoccra and Spinthoptcra, where individual stature appears 

 to be rather constant, the body in Gyascutus frequently varies enor- 

 mously in size within specific limits; indivieluals are usually abundant 

 when they occur at all. In the first section of the genus the broad and 

 densely punctate imjiression ali)ng the aj>ical thoracic margin is much 

 more developed and abruptly defined than in the second section. 



