102 AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGY. 



which it is very distinct, and is the most brilliant species we 

 have. I have not yet met with it in the Atlantic States. The 

 first specimen was obtained in Missouri, and I caught another in 

 the North-Western Territory, when travelling over that region 

 with Major Long's party. 



The right figure of the plate. 



SCAPHINOTUS. Plate XLV. 



Generic character. Head narrowerthan the thorax; external 

 maxillary, and labial palpi, with the last joint dilated, compressed, 

 securiform; labrum elongated, profoundly emarginate; labium 

 very large, profoundly emarginate, not wider at base than at tip; 

 mandibles elongated, narrow, bidentate near the tip ; thorax with 

 the lateral margins reflected, posterior angles extended ; elytra 

 entire, not divided at the suture, prominently carinate each side, 

 and embracing the sides of the abdomen ; tarsi with the three 

 basal joints of the anterior feet a little dilated in the male. 



Obs. Separated by Latreille, from the genus Cychrus, and 

 consisting as yet, of a single species only, though Dejean sup- 

 poses that the Cychrus unicolor of Fabricius, will constitute a 

 second species, but the latter does not appear to be at present 

 known to entomologists. This genus is most closely allied to 

 Cychrus and Sphseroderus, but particularly to the former; the 

 thorax, however, is of a different form, and the anterior tarsi of 

 the male are a little dilated. 



We have remarked in our Preface, p. vi. that " care has been 

 taken that species of different genera be not represented in the 

 same plate." It seems therefore proper, that we should state 

 the reason why we have not complied with this intention in the 

 annexed plate, where three genera are introduced. That plate 

 was engraved before the author left Philadelphia, on a visit to 

 New-Harmony, Indiana, his present residence, and it was only a 

 few months since, that he received the second volume of Dejean's 

 Species General des Coleopteres, published last year, in which 

 the distinguished author has reformed the genus Cychrus. But 

 as the object of that intention was, that the work might be 

 " bound up, when completed, agreeably to systematic order in 

 the succession of genera," the author conceives that no disad- 

 vantage can ever arise from this circumstance, as these genera 



