258 STAPH YLINID^. [OcT/jms. 



This species is easily distinguished from the other black species by its 

 more linear and parallel form, and jet-black, shining, sparingly punctured 

 head and thorax. 



O, morio, Grav. (edentulus, Block, Anodus morio, Nord.). A very 

 variable species as regards size, some specimens being twice as large as 

 others, black, head and thorax moderately shiny, elytra and hind body 

 dull ; head rather transverse with angles rounded, rather broader than 

 thorax, thickly and rather strongly punctured ; antennae black, lighter 

 towards apex, with last joint sometimes testaceous, penultimate joints 

 considerably longer than broad ; thorax somewhat longer than broad, 

 slightly narrowed behind, thickly and somewhat strongly punctured, with 

 a smooth, fine, somewhat raised central line, effaced in front ; elytra 

 about as long as thorax very thickly and rugosely punctured ; hind body 

 finely, very tliickly, and asperately punctured ; legs black with the tibiae 

 and sometimes the tarsi dark pitchy red. L. 11-18 mm. 



Male with seventh ventral segment of hind body slightly sinuate in 

 middle of apical margin, with a small smooth space before sinuation. 



Under stoues, moss, &c. ; common and generally distributed throughout the 

 kingdom. 



The only species that this could be confused with is O. similis, from 

 which, apart from the more slender and toothless mandibles, it differs in 

 its shorter and more transverse head and longer elytra, the latter being 

 as long as thorax, instead of evidently shorter as in the latter species. 



O. compressus, Marsh {fulvipes, M.ois., Anodus compressuSjThiOras.). 

 This species is at once distinguished from all the others by its extremely 

 fine punctuation and dull appearance, and the fact that the legs ar« entirely 

 red, with the exception of the coxse which are pitchy ; the shape is much 

 the same as that of 0. morio, and it resembles that species in having no 

 tooth on the internal margin of the mandibles ; the elytra, however, are 

 a little shorter in proportion to the thorax ; the whole upper surface 

 appears sometimes to have a slightly bluish or purplish reflection, which 

 is apparently due to the effect caused by the extremely fine punctuation ; 

 the central smooth space of the thorax is often almost, if not quite, obso- 

 lete ; the male charactei-s are much as in the preceding. L. 13-15 mm. 



Under stones, in moss, &c. ; never common, but widely distriboted ; Lewishara, 

 Forest Hill, Addington, Weybridge, Parley Downs, Miekleham, Wimbledon, Epping, 

 Tilgate, Belvedere (in Cossus hurrow) ; Colchester; Hunstanton; Eastbourne; New 

 Forest ; Exeter ; Westward Ho ! ; Isle of Man ; Liverpool ; Scotland, Isle of Arran ; 

 one specimen taken by myself in August 1879 ; there is, however, no other record from 

 Scotland, nor is it recorded from the northern counties of England, so it is evidently 

 very rare in the north. 



PKIZiONTHUS, Curtis. 



This very large and almost tmiversally distributed genus comprises at 

 present upwards of six hundred species, some of which are found in widely 

 Beparated regions, having been probably carried by commerce from one 



