Goleopterological Notices, VII. 46T 



SJMICROPHVS n. gen. 



In general organization the two minute species constituting 

 this genus are intimately allied to Euconnus ; but they have two 

 characters which cannot be harmonized with any variation of that 

 ■complex, and I have therefore been obliged to separate them. 

 The head is far exserted as in Euconnus, but the eyes are large, 

 very prominent and situated at the middle of the sides. The other 

 character is quite extraordinary in the present group, though 

 common in the Eumicrini, and resides in the fact that the met- 

 •episternum is broadly visible at the sides of the body. In Eu- 

 connus it frequently happens that this piece is exposed by acci- 

 dent, if the elytra be not placed closely against the body, but 

 here it appears to be a true exposure and cannot be entirely ac- 

 counted for in that way. 



The head is usually small, and, while both the head and elytra 

 are glabrous, the prothorax bristles with unusually developed stiff 

 spicules and hairs. The elytra, legs and palpi are as in Euconnus, 

 -and the pronotum has two feeble subbasal fovese near the middle 

 but is otherwise unmodified. The hind coxae are moderately sepa- 

 rated and the mesosternum rather feebly carinate. The antennae 

 are moderate in length and have a 4-jointed club. 



The two species may be separated by the following characters : — 



Black throughout, larger, the elytra more inflated; head less minute, the eyes 

 relatively smaller, separated on the vertex by twice their own length. 



1 leviceps 



Black, the elytra dull rufous; head very small, the eyes relatively larger, 

 separated on the vertex by about % naore than their own length ; antennal 

 prominences more evident 2 eTanesceus 



In distribution this genus is confined as far as known to the 

 regions east of the Rocky Mountains, but there is a bare possi- 

 bility that it may be very nearly identical with the form sepa- 

 rated by Mr. Croissandeau (Ann. Fr., 1893, p. 225) under the name 

 Microscydmus. 



1. S. leTicepS n. sp. — Eather stout and pyriform, polished, impunctate, 

 l)lack throughout ; legs and antennae rufo-testaceous, the club of the latter 

 ^usky ; head and elytra glabrous, the former with a long seta immediately be- 

 liind each eye and another above the point of antennal insertion, and the latter 

 with a series of three or four erect setse near inner third and one or two exterior 

 to this ; prothttrax bristling on the flanks with numerous stiff erect hairs and 

 spicules, which are fine on the disk anteriorly and nearly wanting posteriorly. 



