Casey — A Revision of the American Paederini. 21 



It would be a source of the greatest satisfaction if typical 

 examples of all the American genera described by Dr. Sharp 

 could have been procured, not only for the purpose of ar- 

 ranging them in proper succession with the others, but 

 especially in order to avoid the possible redescription of some 

 of them from our southwestern regions under new and un- 

 necessary names, but this was found to be impracticable and 

 recourse was had to inferences derived from the rather too 

 short diagnoses and poor figures of the "Biologia."* It is 

 probable however that but few synonyms will be found 

 among the genera. It seems scarcely necessary to repeat, in 

 view of what I have already published (Annals N. Y. Acad. 

 VII, p. 353), that Liparocephalus and related genera are in 

 no way Paederids but belong to the Aleocharini. 



Cryptobia . 



The components of this extensive subtribe are the most 

 highly organized and actively predaceous of the Paederini 

 and include some of the largest species of the tribe. They 

 are very poorly represented in the western parts of the old 

 world, extremely abundant and greatly diversified in North 

 and South America and are moderately numerous in eastern 

 Asia, to which regions they probably migrated from North 

 America in rather remote geologic time, for at present the 

 Asiatic genera are all different from those of North America. 

 Their close relationship with the Lathrobia is shown not only 

 by general organization and prosternal structure, but especially 

 by the occurrence of a pleural fold on the elytra, the origin 

 and meaning of which are rather obscure. The absence or 



* My failure to secure the rich and varied collection of Staphylinidae 

 brought home from Brazil by Mr. H. H. Smith, was one of the greatest 

 disappointments of my scientific career, for this copious material contains 

 examples of nearly all the tropical American genera, besides a large pro- 

 portion of the remarkably diversified species of those regions, as I inferred 

 from mounting nearly a thousand specimens forming a sample lot placed 

 in my hands by Mr. Smith for examination. These specimens are prob- 

 ably at present in the Carnegie Museum at Pittsburg with the Smith 

 collection. 



