I 66 CASEY 



Poecilonota Esch. 



The species of this genus are much less numerous than those of 

 Dicerca and present a distinctly different appearance, due to the more 

 even and less convex surface, more regular and pronounced elytral 

 striation and longer and more slender antennae, especially noticeable in 

 the joints following the second and differing in this way from Lampra, 

 where the antenna are very much as in Dicerca. The outer joints 

 in Poecilonota are, as in Dicerca, wholly devoid of dense punctures, 

 but the sensory fossa is larger, oval and situated on the inner side of 

 the apex of the serrature. In the present genus the median line of the 

 pronotum is not impressed as in Dicerca, even near the apex, but is 

 narrowly flattened, slightly elevated and abruptly impunctate; the 

 scutellum is much larger, very transverse, strongly trapezoidal, with 

 the hind angles more or less acutely prominent, the legs more slender 

 and the basal joint of the hind tarsi more elongate. The elytral apices 

 are generally rather abruptly, though briefly and narrowly, prolonged, 

 the slender tips entire or sinuate and with denticulate angles, but this 

 formation is far less constant within specific limits than in Dicerca, 

 so that the nature of the elytral apices is not so trustworthy a criterion 

 in the characterization of species, except when taken within rather 

 wide limits. This plasticity in the form of the elytral tips is well 

 illustrated by a specimen of cupripes before me, which, though a mal- 

 formation, may have its origin partially in the general lack of sta- 

 bility of this part of the elytra. As a rule, the elytral tips of cupripes are 

 simply rectilinearly truncate, but in the example alluded to the left 

 elytron is normal, with its tip narrow and truncate, while the right 

 elytron is abbreviated, not extending posteriorly as far as the left and 

 has its tip broader, deeply and evenly sinuateand with acutely dentiform 

 angles; this specimen is apparently not in the least abnormal other- 

 wise. 



One of the more pronounced characters distinguishing Poecilonota 

 from the general type form in Dicerca, resides in the prosternum, 

 which in the former is broad and feebly, evenly convex as a rule, though 

 depressed along the elevated side margins, and in this it resembles 

 Lampra, but whether Dicerca miitica has a prosternum in any way 

 similar or not, I am unable to state at present. The sexual characters 

 are not very marked, the notch or sinus at the apex of the fifth ven- 



