202 Dr. Guy A. K. Marshall on 



clear beneath the eye, \yithout covering any portion of it. 

 The adoption of this position of the antenna as the essential 

 criterion of the Brachyderine scrobe not only simplifies 

 the interpretation of the character, but also appears to 

 lead to a more satisfactory grouping of the genera. On 

 this basis Com'psus, Plococomjjsus and their allies will be 

 transferred to a more natural position in the Otiorrhynchine 

 series of Lacordaire, in the vicinity of Eustylus Schh., 

 as Mr. G. C. Champion has already suggested (Biol. Cent.- 

 Amer. Col. iv, pt. 3, p. 282). 



Among the Otiorrhynchines the presence or absence 

 of prothoracic vibrissae is clearly of far less taxonomic 

 importance than in the Brachyderincs ; and as both 

 Diaprepes and Exopkthalmodes will now fall within the 

 former group, there is no reason for widely separating these 

 two very closely allied genera merely because Diaprepes 

 possesses these vibrissae, as has been done by both Mr. 

 Champion and Mr. W. Dwight Pierce. 



Genus Exorides Pasc. 



Exorides Pascoe, Ann. Mag. N.H. (5) vii, 1881, p. 43. 



When describing this genus Pascoe was in doubt con- 

 cerning its affinities, but there can be no question as to its 

 close relationship with Compms; indeed, the genotype, 

 E. carinalus Pasc, had already been described by von 

 Harold (1863) under the name of Compsus tvagneri, and 

 there are several other described species attributed to the 

 latter genus w^hich would be better placed in Exorides. 

 Owing, however, to the diversity of the species at present 

 included in Compsus, it is not easy to give a really satis- 

 factory definition of Pascoe's genus, but it is here pro- 

 visionally regarded as including those forms that present 

 the following combination of characters : — Wings non- 

 functional; the elytra narrow at the shoulders, with the 

 bases more or less truncate obliquely and not separately 

 rounded so as to project over the base of the prothorax; 

 the scrobes continued right up to the lower anterior margin 

 of the eye; and the scape of the antennae comparatively 

 slender, abruptly clavate, and clothed only with pubescence 

 or narroAV hair-like scales, never v/ith broad overlapping 

 scales. 



In the key given beloAv I have included all the species 

 known to me which come within this definition, but judging 



