28 JOUENAL OF ENTOMOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY 



Pedilus inconspicuus Horn 

 Trans. Am. Ent. See, 1874, p. 42. 



Length S-1 .S mm. Black, prothorax rufous. 



Head only moderately sparsely and not very finely punctate, the 

 tempora at sides and beneath closely coarsely so. 



Prothorax finely sparsely punctured. 



Elytra rather densely and coarsely punctate. 



Male: Elytra unmodified at apex, front and middle tarsi not 

 dilated; side pieces of oedeagus with a sub-apical projecting tongue 

 on the inner edge; middle piece acuminate with finely spiniform tip. 



Female: Elytra and tarsi not appreciably different from those 

 of the male. 



var. flavidus n. var. 



For the salce of convenience this name is proposed for a form of 

 the above species having the elytra rufotestaceous or yellow with 

 the sutural edge, side margin, at least toward the apex, and the 

 tip blaclcish. The antennae and legs are normally entirely black as 

 in the typical form. 



If the numerous specimens which I have associated under the 

 name inconspicuus really constitute a single species — and of this 

 I am by no means certain — it is unquestionably the most widely dis- 

 tributed and most variable of our West Coast species. In the more 

 than one hundred examples before me, however, the differences ex- 

 hibited by salient individuals become evanescent, and this together 

 with the fact that the secondary sexual characters — or rather 

 the entire lack of them — as well as the genitalia are apparently 

 identical throughout, has led me to consider them all as representa- 

 tives of a single species. The form of the cedeagus is peculiar to 

 this species and is not adequately represented by Horn's figure, there 

 being there no indication of the tongue-like projection from the 

 inner margin of the side pieces. The slender front and middle 

 tarsi with entire absence of glandular pubescence is an exceptional 

 character, shared only by flahellatus and picipennis. 



The type series of inconspicuus is said by Horn to have been 

 collected by P. S. Sprague of Boston, and though the precise locality 

 is not indicated, there is little doubt they were taken somewhere in 



