388 INSECTA. 



of this division by the mode of dilitaticn peculiar to the two anterior 

 tarsi of the males ; the two first joints, of which the radical is the 

 largest, are alone dilated ; the two following ones are small and 

 equal. Their body is usually more oblong than that of an Amara, 

 besides which they appear to inhabit, exclusively, the coast or bor- 

 ders of salt-water ponds *. 



It is only by an analogous character that we can distinguish from 

 the last the 



Tetragonoderus, Dcj. 



Anterior tarsi of the males less dilated, in proportion, than in the 

 following ones, their first joints being more narrow, elongated, and 

 rather in the form of a reversed cone than cordiform. These Insects 

 are peculiar to South America f. 



Feronia, Lat. 



Three first joints of the anterior tarsi of the males strongly dilated, 

 in the form of a reversed heart ; second and third rather transversal 

 than longitudinal. 



This subgenus will include the numerous generic sections given in 

 the Catalogue, &c. of Count Dejean, such as Amara, Pa:cilus, Argutor, 

 Omaseus, Platysma, Pterostichus, Ahax, Sieropus, Percus, Molops, Co- 

 phosus. This learned entomologist has since — Species III — per- 

 ceived the impossibility of distinguishing them, the first excepted, 

 which he still retains ; the others he unites in one great generic 

 section which he calls, with me, Feronia. But even as regards the 

 Amarae themselves, I have vainly sought for characters in the anten- 

 nae and parts of the mouth, Avhich might clearly distinguish them 

 from the other genera. The one drawn from the tooth of the middle 

 of the emargination of the mentum, to say nothing of the slight 

 degree of importance attached to it, is very equivocal ; this tooth in 

 aU these Carabici appears to me to be emarginated at the extremity, 

 though somewhat more deeply or distinctly in some than in others. 

 The antennae of several are slightly granose, or composed of joints 

 comparatively shorter, and rounded at the summit ; but the limits of 

 this distinction cannot be rigorously defined. I say the same of the 

 concavity of the anterior margin of the labrum and of the form of 

 the thorax. 



The Feroniae may form three divisions : 



1. Tliose species, generally furnished with wings, in which the 

 more or less oval body is slightly convex or arcuated above, with 

 more fiiform antennae, the head proportionably narrower, and the 

 mandibles somewhat less salient. In their habits these species ap- 

 proach the Zabri and Harpali. Such are the AmaraeJ , whose thorax 



* See the Catalogue of Dejean. Germar in the Fauna Insectorum Europse has 

 figured two species : Pogonus halophihis, X, i ; Harpalus Ivridipennis, VIII, 2, allied 

 to the Pogonus pallidipennis of the first. 



-f" Harpalus circumfusus, Germ. Insect. Spec. Nov. I, 26 ? 



X Shorter species, whose thorax widens from before posteriorly, constitute the 

 grenus Lcirus of some authors. The Scolytus Jiexuosus, Fab., seems referable to this 

 division, but according to Count Dejean the four anterior tarsi are dilated : it ap- 



