454 



STAPHYLINID/E. 



conspecific with Curtis 1 8 (more northern) type, it being not only a 

 little narrower and smaller, but having its elytra appreciably shorter, 

 more depressed, and with the posterior region more or less broadly 

 and brightly rufo-testaceous ; whereas in the spinifer the elytra are 

 totally black. In the spinifer, likewise, the femora and tibiae are 

 picescent ; whereas in the present insect the entire legs are pale. 

 In general colour and contour, it has almost exactly the primd facie 

 appearance of the European Hygronoma dimidiata a circumstance 

 which has suggested its trivial name*. 



1248. Phytosus nigriventris. 



Myrmedonia nigriventris, Chevr., in Guer. Rev. Zool. 42 (1843). 

 Phytosus nigriventris, Duval, Gen. des Col. cTEur. ii. pi. 3. f. 11 (1857). 



, Kraatz, in Berl. Ent. Zeit. [nee in Stett. Ent. Zeit., nee in 



Nat. der Ins. Deutsch.] 53 (1859). 



-, Fauvel, Ann. de la Soc. Ent. de France, 86 (1862). 



minyops, WolL, Cat. Can. Col 531 (1864). 



Habitat Canarienses (Fuert.\ in locis similibus ac prascedens. 



A single specimen, taken by myself in Fuerteventura of the Cana- 

 rian Group (from under sea- weed, on the sandy beach about a mile 

 to the south of Puerto de Cabras), is all that I have yet seen of this 

 European Plujtosus in these Atlantic islands. In my late Catalogue 

 I felt compelled to separate it from the ordinary P. nigriventris, on 

 the authority of a " type " of the latter which had been lent to me 

 by Dr. Schaum ; nevertheless it accords so precisely with the figure 

 of that species given by Duval, as well as with a French example 

 lately communicated by Mr. Janson, that I feel satisfied I was led 

 into an error through Schaum's specimen having been incorrectly 

 determined ; and hence I have no hesitation in citing it as the true 

 nigriventris^. 



* That these characters obtain universally in this (more southern) Phytosus, it 

 appears evident ; for in 52 examples now before me (from Lanzarote, Fuerte- 

 ventura, Grand Canary, and the coast of Africa), and nearly double that number 

 were examined by me when I compiled the diagnosis given in my Canarian 

 Catalogue, there is no single instance in which they fail. The only approach to 

 a difference is in the specimens from Morocco, in which the peculiarity of colo- 

 ration is even still more exaggerated the elytra being almost entirely rufb-testa- 

 ceous, with merely their basal region darkened. I do not consider it necessary to 

 insert a fresh diagnosis in this volume (on account of having now proposed for 

 the species a new name), for I have already published one in my Canarian 

 Catalogue. 



t The P. nigriventris may be characterized as a little larger and broader than 

 the balticus (with its limbs relatively somewhat longer), and of an exceedingly 

 pale rufo-testaceous hue, the fifth as well as either the whole or part of the 

 fourth and sixth segments of its abdomen (which is nearly opake, and ve: 

 closely and finely asperate-punctate) being black. 



