mn. 161 



Deltaspis variabilis. 



Closely ullicd to D. mar/jhiella, but readily diatiiiguished by its 

 more or less shining thorax, on which the similar subalveolate punc- 

 tuation is readily detected: the lateral angle or tubercle is generally 

 prominent, but is sometimes (as in other species of the genus) absent. 

 The colour is variable, the thorax, generally bright red with blue-black 

 anterior and posterior borders, is sometimes suffused with the dark 

 colour. The elytra, finely and densely punctured, are red, sometimes 

 with broad basal and sutural blue-black margins, or wholly blue-black, 

 with the epi pleurae alone red. I/ong., 10 — 14 mm , ^^ $ . 



State of Guerrero, Mexico (i?(j;'ow), communicated by Mr.Hai-ford. 



11, Carleloii Road. Tufiicll Park, N.W : 

 llaj/, 1891. 



ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE CLAWS 



IN STERNOC(ELIS AND IIET.ERIUS, AND NOTES ON THE 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIES. 



BY GEORGE LEWIS, E.L.S. 



The claws of Sfernocoelis are stout and single on all the tarsi, but 

 I only observed this character in March, when I had some living spe- 

 cimens to study for a few days. This character will hereafter serve 

 well to distinguish the genus from Hefcerius, in addition to the con- 

 cavity common to the meso- and metasterna. The claws are short, 

 and being robust, the speculation that they have gradually become 

 connate might seem legitimate if I could see any sign of a suture, but 

 as far as I can tell the claw is solid. Eretmotits also has only a single 

 claw, and perhaps the enlargement of one claw in both cases has been 

 the cause of the disappearance of the second. In Hetcerius the claws 

 are slender, each tarsus, like those of the majority of beetles, bearing 

 two, and I see a similar structure in Satrapes, the genus which of all 

 the Kisteridae most resembles it. In Hetcerius and Sternocoelis the 

 two basal joints of the antennae are evidently connate, as a suture 

 remains and shows the limit of each joint. As regards Hetcjerius, Dr. 

 G. H. Horn has point(!d out this, and has given us figures of the 

 antennae, but in the case of the claws in Sternocoelis it seems to me 

 that either one has grown large, its growth causing the waste and 

 final destruction of the other, or that at no period has there been a 

 second, and that there is nothing available at the moment to guide 

 any one to a solution of this problem. The other genera with single 

 claws that I know of in the Histeridce are MonupHus, which contains 



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