AMERICAN COLEOPTERA. 209 



or they may be widely separated, the antennae received between 

 them and extending upon the concave and recessed surface of the 

 metasternum. Metasternum frequently produced between the mid- 

 dle coxae into a broad lobe which is commonly narrowed behind by 

 deep grooves which receive the middle tarsi. First ventral segment 

 excavated (rather feebly in Petalium) for the hind feet, and usually 

 only visible narrowly at the middle. Legs rather slender, the tibial 

 spurs small or wanting; tarsi rather robust and usually very short. 

 As here constituted this tribe assumes afar greater complexity than 

 it possesses in the LeConte and Horn Classification, where only the 

 three genera Dorcatoma, Cosnocara and Byrrhodes are referred to it. 

 In an attempt at an orderly arrangement of our genera of Anobiinpe 

 the most puzzling problem that arises is the proper disposition of the 

 genera Petalium, Theca and Eupactus. LeConte, while recognizing 

 a certain affinity with the Doreatomini, chose to regard them as 

 aberrant members of the Anobiini, his most cogent reason being 

 that the mandibles do not lie in close apposition to the metasternum 

 in repose as is the case in both the Xyletinini and Doreatomini as 

 defined by him. At the beginning of his paper LeConte says, "Con- 

 sidering the variation in form and structure of the antennas in 

 genera which are evidently closely related I have regarded the man- 

 ner in which the body is contracted in repose as of fundamental 

 importance in the classification of the genera." This basis for clas- 

 sification is an eminently rational one in the present family, but the 

 author is evidently following the letter rather than the spirit of the 

 principle involved when he places in the Anobiini, genera like Theca 

 and Eupactus, in which the body is as perfectly contractile and the 

 members as completely protected as in Dorcatoma or Ccenocara. 

 Mulsant and Rey in their admirable work on the Terediles of 

 France divide the Anobiinae primarily into the "Anobiens" and 

 " Dorcatomiens " the latter being sharply separated from the former 

 by the possession of metasternal and ventral pits for the reception 

 of the four posterior feet. This method of division has been accep 

 ted by subsequent European authors, and I am convinced after a 

 careful study of our own genera that it is the most simple as well as 

 the most natural means of defining the Doreatomini. Theca then 

 should be returned in our classification to the latter tribe where it 

 was originally placed by Mulsant and Rey. By the same reasoning 

 Eupactus and Petalium should pass to the same tribe, as should also 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. XXXI. (27) JUNE, 1905. 



