Ccisey — Observations on the Staphylinidae. 377 



the elytra always somewhat paler and piceo-rafous ; legs and antennae 

 blackish-piceous, the tarsi paler; head behind the antennae quadrate, 

 Tery sparsely and rather finely punctured toward the sides, the eyes 

 moderately developed and slightly convex as usual; under surface finely, 

 sparsely punctate ; prothorax as wide as the head to a little wider, much 

 less elongate than in the preceding and with the sides more strongly 

 converging from the broadly rounded apical angles and nearly straight, 

 about a fourth longer than wide, the serial punctures moderately coarse ; 

 elytra equal in length to the prothorax to distinctly longer, slightly 

 wider than the latter and much wider than the head, punctured nearly 

 as in hottentotus but still more sparsely; abdomen slightly narrower than 

 the elytra, sparsely punctulate as usual. Length 4.3-4.8 mm. ; width 

 0.65-0.7 mm. Cape Town and Wellington parvus n. sp. 



Of hottentotus I have a female from Cape Town and a 

 male from Wellington, the former satisfying the original 

 description in being black throughout, but the latter, while 

 differing in its stouter form, broader head, shorter elytra and 

 other characters due to sex, has the elytra decidedly pale 

 piceo-rufous and more strongly punctate. There may be 

 two closely allied species involved but the material before me 

 is too limited to permit of decision on this point at present. 

 I have been unable to recognize the Xantholinus fallax^ of 

 Saohse, this species being black, polished, with the prothorax 

 almost parallel and subequal in length to the elytra. 



NoTOLiNOPSis n. gen. — The resemblance between this 

 genus and the last is very noticeable and the similarity is 

 augmented by some of the principal structural peculiarities of 

 2TotolinuSy such as general minute surface sculpture, widely 

 dilated anterior tarsi and other characters, but the form of 

 the fourth palpal joint and frontal grooves differs so greatly 

 as to leave but little doubt of the generic difference, especially 

 in conjunction with certain constant differences in the punc- 

 tuation, the series of thepronotum, for example, never being 

 regular as they are in J^otolinus, but always composed of 

 more numerous punctures, which are irregularly disposed in 

 a longitudinal direction throughout the length in the posi- 

 tion occupied by the regular series of JVotoUnus, and the punc- 

 tures of the elytra are more numerous and evenly, though ir- 

 regularly, scattered throughout, without sublateral series. In 

 addition, the surface of the head beneath is flatter in Nbtolinus 

 and rather more abruptly limited at the sides, and the labrum 



