July, '07] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 3OI 



Notes on Histeridae. 

 By Charles Schaeffer, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

 Hololepta pervalida Blaisd. 



This is a valid species and distinguishable from all the 

 North American as well as the Mexican species of the sub- 

 genus Liodcrma, as far as known to me, by the possession 

 of a transverse marginal line at base of elytra. This im- 

 pressed line is a continuation of the two striae along the basal 

 margin and generally extends to the scutellum. The form 

 is narrower and more parallel than yucateca; the apical fovea 

 of the thorax in yucateca is very near the apical angles, while 

 the fovea in pcn'alida is separated from the apical angles by 

 twice or three times the width of the side margin, the space 

 between the fovea and the apical angle with confused, short 

 striae. The median ridge of the underside of the front tibiae 

 is smooth and not interrupted in yucateca, but is interrupted, 

 or rather three — or four — dentate in pervalida. 



Mr. George Franck received a great number of specimens 

 from Pasadena, which I take to be this species. The descrip- 

 tion is very poor, hardly anything is given to differentiate this 

 species from yucateca, except that it is said to be "strongly 

 oblong, narrower and much less depressed than yucateca," 

 which applies well to the Pasadena specimens, but also to 

 grandis Mars., which Marseul himself placed as a synonym 

 of his yucateca. In the description of grandis there is, how- 

 ever, no mention made of the transverse marginal stria at 

 base of elytra, which could not have been overlooked. 



Major Casey, who seems to have seen the type of princeps 

 Lee, states that this is a distinct species, but gives nothing 

 to differentiate it from yucateca Mars. It may be that per- 

 valida is the same as princeps, in which case the latter name 

 has to be used for this species. 



I found Hololepta yucateca near Brownsville, Texas, in the 

 decaying trunks of Yucca treculeana: vernicis in the decaying 

 flower stalks of Agave americana? in the Huachuca Mountains, 

 Arizona, and cacti in the half-decayed leaves or rather stems of 

 Opuntia engclmanni near Brownsville and Hidalgo, Texas. 



