COLEOPTERA. 49 
Asipa, Lat.* 
Next come Blapsides, with an oval and slightly elongated body, 
in which the lateral curve of the elytra is narrow, and extends but 
little underneath ; in which the thorax is always transversal, al- 
most square or trapezoidal, and the lateral edges arcuated; and 
which are still more remarkable for the sexual difference in their 
tarsi, the two or four anterior ones being most dilated in the 
males +. 
These Insects frequent sandy localities. The twe anterior tibiz 
are usually wider, dilated triangularly at the extremity, and fitted 
for digging. 
Here the anterior edge of the head is always emarginated. The 
two anterior tarsi of the males are alone manifestly wider, or more 
dilated than the following ones. 
Prpinus, Lat. 
M. Megerle and Count Dejean have divided them into several 
other subgenera, but without giving their characters, 
Those, where the males have the four first joints of the anterior 
tarsi of the same width, with the radical triangular, the three follow- 
ing transversal and almost equal, all the tibiee narrow and elongated, 
the thorax narrowed posteriorly and terminated by acute angles, 
form the genus Opatrinus of Count Dejean. 
They all belong to America f. 
Those, where the same tarsi, and in the same sex, have the first 
joint, and particularly the fourth, sensibly narrower or smaller than 
the two that are intermediate, and in which the thorax is narrowed 
near the posterior angles, form four other subgenera, the characters 
of which are so faint and blended that they may all be united in one, 
that of Denparus, Meg., Dej. 
In some species, as in Opatrinus, the tibize are narrow, elongated, 
but slightly dilated at their extremity and almost identical in both 
sexes; and the thorax is abruptly narrowed on each side near the 
posterior angles, which form a small acute tooth: they form the 
Dendari, properly so called §. 
In the following, the four anterior tibie, or at least the two first, 
are dilated triangularly at the extremity. The body is oval. Such 
is the Hetiopuitus of Count Dejean. Sometimes the thorax ter- 
minates insensibly on each side in an acute angle. The body is 
proportionally shorter and wider. 
Certain species, with a large thorax hardly wider than it is long, 
* Lat., Gener. Crust. et Insect., II, p. 155. See the Catalogue, &c., of Dejean, 
p. 65. The Platynotus undatus of Fabricius differs but little from the A. grisea. 
That author is, I think, mistaken as to its habitat. —Plat. levigatus, Id. 
+ The inferior surface of these tarsi is usually silky or furnished with a brush. 
t Blaps clathrata, Fab.;—B. punctata, Fab., and perhaps his Platynotus dila- 
tatus. 
§ See Catalogue, &c., Dej., p. 65, and the Platynotus excavatus, and crenatus, 
Fab. 
