[3] NORTH AMERICAN COLEOPTERA. 159 



des segments exterieurenient appi eeiables et conformes en dessus coniine en 

 dessousl Que Ton nous prouve, comme question d'anatoniie geuerale et 

 transcendante et technique des Staphylinides, qu'il y a 8 piece«, 10 nieme 

 (Pand. Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1869, 265) eu d?ssus de l'abdomen, cela est fort 

 bien, rnais ceci une fois etabli n'enumerons pas dans des descriptions qui 

 doivent etre claires et cornp:ehensibles pour tou->, et n'assimilous pas aux 

 v eiitables segments abdomiuaux ces annexes metathoraciques qui s'arretent 

 au niveau des epimeres clu metastemum, et qui font corps avec I id 



"Je previens done que j'en revim 1 - al'ancienne methode, et que, quelque soit 

 l'allongement ou la brievetode l'elytre, le compte des segments abdomiuaux 

 se fera dans mes description?, a partir du premier ventral et de son corres- 

 pondaut dorsal, ce qui est la logiqne et la precision, que Ton ait affaire a un 

 Aleocbarien ou a un Omalien." 



These remarks fitly convey my own views and are similar, 

 in substance, to what I should have stated as a result of 

 study and observation. In all my future writings the ven- 

 tral segments will be counted from, and including the first 

 as seen from below, which is the real first segment of the 

 abdomen. 



For an illustration of this structure the reader is referred 

 to the plate at the end of the present paper, where the basal 

 portion of the abdomen of Hesperobium is figured in 

 detail. It is there seen that the first segment has at the 

 base a raised flat margin, rapidly diminishing in length to 

 the median carina, where it almost disappears. It is possi- 

 bly this raised margin which has been mistaken by several 

 authors for a small basal segment, partially hidden by the 

 posterior margin of the metastemum and the coxa3. 



The true significance of the basal elevation is not appar- 

 ent, unless, perhaps, that it serves to form a closer joint 

 when the abdomen is drawn up, and still allow of a certain 

 amount of flexibility. That it is not the ventral portion of 

 the small membranous or coriaceous posterior segments 

 of the metanotum is abundantly proven by the fact, as 

 shown above by M. Jekel, that these coriaceous parts do 

 not project beyond the metastemum and do not in reality 

 form part of the abdomen; also because the other segments 

 are also provided with an entirely analogous raised basal 



