Coleopterous Family Derrnestidfe. 437 



antenna of the male is short and heart-sliaped, a little more 

 pointed than in T. rufocincta and oothecobia, but less so than 

 in T. rvfocojnllata and hilleri. 



Genus Orphinus. 



The genus Orphinus of Alotschulskj, quite wrongly placed 

 with Orphilus in Dalla Tone's Catalogue, is really a large 

 and important one, of which a number ot" species have been 

 described under the name of Cryptorrhopalum, while many 

 more remain utidescribed. Reitter has stated that the typical 

 species, 0. hcemorrhoidaUs , Motsch., belongs to Gryptor- 

 rhopalum, nnd has changed its name to C. motschulslci/i ; but 

 in 1908 (Bull. Soc. Ent. Egypte, i. p. 45) he described a 

 so-called new genus (^thriosia) , the characters of which are 

 precisely those of Orphinus. He placed in it only a single 

 species (globulicomis) from Egypt, and omitted to note that 

 many others, including several previously described by him- 

 self, are congeneric with it. As already stated by Sharp 

 (Biol. Centr.-Amer., Ooleopt. ii. 1, p. 652), Cryptorrhopalum 

 is really a well-marked American genus, and the various 

 Oriental and Australian insects which have been referred to 

 it have none of them its essential feature, viz., an antennal 

 club composed of two large, nearly equal joints. The chief 

 diagnostic character of Orphinus, as given by Motschulsky, 

 is a " club composed of two very unequal joints, the last 

 circular." The statement that the antenna is 9-jointed is 

 probably due to Motschulsky wrongly counting the minute 

 joints preceding the club, as the number is eleven in the 

 species known to me. The last joint is flat and circular, 

 very large in the male, with the preceding joint relatively 

 small and connate with it. In the female the penultimate 

 joint is larger and tlie last smaller. In some, if not all, 

 of the species the last ventral segment is broadly depressed in 

 the male and the hind margin produced into a sharp spine on 

 each side of the depression. The mesosternum is broad and 

 completely divided by a channel, which receives the spinose 

 prosternal process. 



Sharp and Blackburn did not know the genus Orphinus, or 

 they would certainly have placed in it the Old- World insects 

 they have provisionally called Cryptorrhopalum. Until 

 other genera are created, it will probably be most natural to 

 transfer to it all the non-American insects now unnaturally 

 associated with Cryptorrhopalum. The following may be 

 regarded as typical species of Orphinus : — 0. hcemorrhoidaUs 

 and pedestris, Motsch., 'Jroyoderma defectum, Walker, 



