1 895-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 179 



hirticollis, repanda and its varieties, and less conspicuously in 

 limbata, the emargination lies not upon the median line of the 

 body, but noticeably to the left. A somewhat similar sexual 

 asymmetrical modification of the last ventral has been recorded 

 in the Pselaphide genus Sonoma {Faronus)^ and in the Staphy- 

 linide genus Palaminus, but so far as I know the peculiarity is 

 common to all species of these genera. It therefore seems very 

 remarkable that so aberrant a structure should affect this small 

 number of species in the very midst — as it were — of a homo- 

 geneous genus. 



The last of three above named sexual characters — males with 

 the intermediate tibiae externally pubescent — females glabrous, 

 I can not all appreciate. The difference seems to me to be 

 merely comparative, at least I have not yet found a specimen 

 which does not show this pubescence, and while it is usually 

 more conspicuous in the males, in not a few cases the difference 

 is so slight as to be barely perceptible. 



A character which in very many species possesses a positive 

 value, and to which I do not remember to have seen any allusion, 

 exists in the extent of the pubescence which clothes the sides of 

 the abdominal segments. In the males of most species the pubes- 

 cence is always of nearly equal density on all the segments, 

 while in the females the last segment is either entirely glabrous, 

 or with at most a few hairs at the base. Dorsaljs, puritana, 

 lepida^ gabbii, togata, scutellaris, temcisignata and sigmoidea 

 among others well illustrate this point. In some species {I'edi- 

 latera, circumpidd) the pubescence ends abruptly with the fourth 

 segment, and occasionally {vulgaris, abdominalis) the last three 

 segments are unclothed. It is worthy of mention that the females 

 of the western varieties of repanda {oregona 2iX\6. guttifera) entirely 

 lack the pubescence at the sides of the abdominal segments ; at 

 least this is true in the fairly good series which I possess, and 

 will, I suspect, prove characteristic. 



In the Deutsche Ent. Zeits. 1895, p. 58, Mr. J. Weise suggests the new 

 generic name Fabridanus for our Cryptocephalus auratus. Ini 880 (Trans. 

 Am. Ent. Soc. viii, p. 196), Dr LeConte suggests the name Diachus for 

 the same species and six others. In the Biologia i, p. 149, Mr. Bates 

 describes a Betnbidiutn ludduni as a new species. The same was de- 

 scribed by Dr. LeConte under the same name in 1848, Ann. Lye. iv, p. 

 466.— G. H. Horn. 



