COLEOPTERA. 297 



besides which they appear to inhabit, exclusively, the coast or bor- 

 ders of salt-water ponds(l). 



It is only by an analogous character that we can distinguish from 

 the last the * 



Tetragonoderus, Dej. 



Anterior tarsi of the males less dilated, in proportion, than in the 

 following ones, their first joints being more narrow, elongated, and 

 rather in the form of a reversed cone than cordiform. These Insects 

 are peculiar to South America(2). 



Feronia, Lat. 



Three first joints of the anterior tarsi of the males strongly 

 dilated, in the form of a reversed heart j second and third rather 

 transversal than longitudinal. 



This subgenus will include the numerous generic sections given in 

 the Catalogue, &c. of Count Dejean, such as Amara, Poecilus, Argu- 

 ior, Omaseus, Platysma, Pterostichus, Max^ Steropus, Percus, Molops, 

 Cophosus. This learned entomologist has since — Species III — 

 perceived the impossibility of distinguishing them, the first 

 excepted, which he still retains; the others he unites in one great 

 generic section which he calls, with me, Feronia. But even as 

 regards the Amarse themselves, I have vainly sought for characters 

 in the antennae and parts of the mouth, which might clearly distin- 

 guish them from the other genera. The one drawn from the tooth of 

 the middle of the emargination of the mentum, to say nothing of the 

 slight degree of importance attached to it, is very equivocal; this 

 tooth in all these Carabici appears to me to be emarginated at the 

 extremity, though somewhat more deeply or distinctly in some 

 than in others. The antennae of several are slightly granose, or 

 composed of joints comparatively shorter, and rounded at the 

 summit; but the limits of this distinction cannot be rigorously 

 defined. I say the same of the concavity of the anterior margin of 

 the labrum and of the form of the thorax. 



The Feroniae may form three divisions: 



1. Those species, generally furnished with wings, in which the 

 more or less oval body is slightly convex or arcuated above, with 

 more filiform antennae, the head proportionably narrower, and the 



(1) See the Catalogue of Dejean. Germar in the Fauna Insectorum Europac 

 has figured two species: Fogonus halophilus, X, i; Harpalus luridipennis, VIII, 2, 

 allied to the Pogonus pallidipenhis of the first. 



(2) Harpalus drcumfusus. Germ. Insect. Spec. Nov. I, 26? 



Vol. III.— 2 N 



