146 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.87 



great amount of biological work necessary for an adequate under- 

 standing of the species became apparent, I decided to limit the study 

 to a reconsideration of the forms described by LeConte and to the 

 description of a few obviously distinct new species. In view of the 

 preHmmary nature of this paper, the key to the species here given 

 will inevitably prove deficient in identifying specimens, since it by 

 no means includes all the species that are likely to be collected. 



The genus Monoxia was described by LeConte,^ who assigned to it 

 the following species: Galleruca conspuia, G. guttulata, G. sordida, 

 and G. angularis, all previously described by himself, and the new 

 species M. obtusa and M. debilis. Because it is one of the largest 

 and easiest to recognize of the species originally included in this 

 homogeneous group, I hereby designate M. angularis as the type of 

 the genus Monoxia. LeConte in his key to the Galerucinae of North 

 America separated Monoxia from related genera by the character of 

 the claws, which he described as acute and usually entire. He states 

 that the genus is made up of "small testaceous species densely clothed 

 with yellow hair, and easily recognized by the ungues being neither 

 cleft nor appendiculate," but "slender, acute, not toothed, nor dilated 

 at base, in one section, and with a small acute tooth not divergent as 

 in Galleruca in the second section. The deflexed pygidium readily 

 distinguishes this genus, and gives to the ventral surface somewhat 

 the appearance observed in genera allied to Clythra." Crotch added 

 to LeConte's description by observing that the claws of the male are 

 finely toothed and those of the female simple. Horn pointed out as 

 the defining characters of the genus the open anterior coxal cavities 

 and the dimorphous claws, bifid in the male and simple in the female. 

 Horn makes little of the vertical pj^gidium, remarking that while it is 

 more or less vertical in the male of the small species, it is not different 

 from other Galerucinae in the large species or in the female. Horn 

 was correct in saying that the pygidium of the female is not vertical. 

 He distinguished Monoxia from Galerucella by its shorter antennae. 



On account of the difference in the claws of the male and female, 

 Weise has placed Monoxia in the subfamily Apophyliini, a group com- 

 posed of African and Asiatic genera and far removed from Galerucella. 

 A study of the claws of the different species of Monoxia shows that 

 those of the female are not always simple but are sometimes toothed 

 and indistinguishable from those of the male. This is the case in at 

 least four species, and wliile three of the species with this character 

 form a group somewhat unlike the other species of Monoxia, the re- 

 maining one is so closely related to the other species of the genus that 

 I can scarcely distinguish it except by the toothed clav/s of the female. 

 Except for its family likeness, the only resemblance Monoxia bears 

 to the othe r genera of the subfamily Apophyliini is the difference in 



• Proc. Acad. Nat. Scl. Philadelphia, vol. 17, p. 221, 1865. 



