NEARCTIC BEETLES MELIGETHES EASTON 99 



M. simplipes is to be taken from April to August, abundantly in 

 the flowers of Rubus canadensis Linnaeus, and less frequently on 

 Syringa. 



Meligethes nigrescens Stephens 



Figure 7S,a-e 



Examination of a considerable number of individuals of the beetle 

 known in North America as Meligethes seminulum LeConte has shown 

 a remarkable agreement in external characters with M. nigrescens 

 Stephens (= yiciyes Sturm) (see Easton, 1951), a species very com- 

 mon throughout Europe and the British Isles and whose range includes 

 Madeira and the Canary Islands, North Africa, Cyprus, the Caucasus, 

 Siberia, and Arabia. Both show close to the apex of the last ventral 

 segment the identical transverse smooth shining area with slightly 

 raised ends that characterizes the male sex; moreover, dissection 

 shows an identical aedeagus whose very distinct tegmen (fig. 78,a-(/), 

 is of a form quite unusual in the genus and, in the female, identical 

 ovipositors characterized by the presence of a spicular sclerite arising 

 from the midpoint and passing in a basal direction in the ventral 

 membrane connecting the valvifers of the two sides (fig. 78,e). 



That M. seminulum LeConte and M. nigrescens Stephens are identi- 

 cal is the obvious and only possible conclusion to be drawn from the 

 above facts. Here we are dealing with one common Holarctic species, 

 the identity of whose representatives in the Old and New Worlds has 

 hitherto escaped recognition, a fact m part explained by Reitter's 

 lack of opportunity to examine M. seminulum LeConte (Reitter, 1873, 

 p. 71). 



The synonymy of the species now becomes: 



M. nigrescens Stephens, 1830 



M. xanthoceros Stephens, 1830 



M. picipes Sturm, 1845 



M.funebris Forster, 1849 



M. seminulum LeConte, 1857 



M. saulcyi Reitter, 1872 



M. pallipes Rey, 1889, nee Boheman, 1851 



M. subsimilis Rey, 1889 



M. circularis Sa.lilberg, 1903 

 As pointed out by Parsons, the distribution of this species is ap- 

 parently discontmuous ; abundant and widespread in Oregon, where 

 it was first recorded by LeConte in 1857, common in the Northeastern 

 States, and met with in several of the Canadian provinces, it has yet 

 to be reported from a vast area covering the central United States. 

 Horn knew of it only from Oregon and from the north shore of Lake 



