1920] Fall — On Certain Species of Haltica, Old and New 111 



Haltica vialis sp. no v. 



Oblong oval, color above and beneath including the legs pur- 

 piireo-violaceous; sutural region especially toward the base, with 

 greenish reflections. Antennae dark throughout, feebly metallic, 

 third and fourth joints subequal. Eyes not very prominent, their 

 width viewed from in front less than half the interocular distance. 

 Head smooth posteriorly; vertex, contiguous to the flattened 

 tubercles coarsely punctate from side to side. Prothorax moder- 

 ately transverse, a little narrower in front, widest behind the mid- 

 dle, sides broadly arcuate, feebly convergent basally, more notice- 

 ably so anteriorly; surface scarcely visibly alutaceous, closely 

 comparatively coarsely punctate; ante-basal groove rather feeble, 

 shallow and incomplete. Elytra oblong, slightly oval, sides very 

 broadly arcuate, surface a little more coarsely punctate than the 

 thorax but scarcely as closely so. Body beneath often with green- 

 ish reflections. Male with last ventral lobed as usual and with an 

 unusually deep polished median longitudinal impression in posterior 

 half. Length, 4.7 to 5.1 mm. ; width, 2.2 to 2.5 mm. 



The type is a male and is one of two examples taken by myself 

 at Raton, New Mexico, November 8, 1889. The specimens were 

 taken, if I remember correctly, under shelter of some sort near the 

 railway station while stopping for lunch on my first transconti- 

 nental trip to California. I have since similarly taken the species 

 at Seligman, Ariz., and have an example from Flagstaff, Ariz., 

 taken by Dr. Fenyes. There are examples in the Le Conte Col- 

 lection from Colorado and western Kansas (Popenoe), and in the 

 Horn Collection from Colorado, in both cases placed with the 

 superficially rather similar torquata, and both combined with the 

 very different eastern carinaia, a mix-up that it is certainly diffi- 

 cult to comprehend. Compared with torquaia the present species 

 is rather larger and more robust, with a much larger thorax and 

 conspicuously coarser punctuation throughout. The ante-basal 

 groove of the thorax is also less sharply defined and the last ventral 

 of the male more deeply impressed. 



