Coleopterological Notices, IV. 463 



possible degree of separation, from complete contiguity as in an 

 undetermined Brazilian genus which I have before me, to extreme 

 separation as in some of the madaride genera ; in our own genera 

 they are always more or less separated. 



The pygidium plays an important part in the classification of the 

 Barini, but the weight attached to it was somewhat over-estimated 

 by LeConte, for the degree of exposure of this part, as well as its 

 relative departure from the vertical, often depends to a considerable 

 extent upon the sex of the individual. In Baris, for example, the 

 species as a rule have not only the pygidium, but in addition nearly 

 the entire propygidium uncovered in the male, the female having 

 merely the pygidium exposed. This sexual character is still more 

 pronounced in some of the centrinide genera, in which there are 

 many species having the pygidium exposed at apex in the male, but 

 entirely covered in the female, and, in two of the species, forming 

 the genus Centrinogyna, it is completely exposed, vertical and 

 unusually large in the male, but oblique and practically entirely 

 covered in the female. It is impossible, therefore, to divide the 

 tribe into two perfectly natural groups based upon pygidial struc- 

 ture, but the latter is nevertheless very useful in characterizing the 

 genera. 



There are but few other points to which attention need be directed 

 at the present time, in view of what has been already published. 

 The eyes do not vary sufficiently to call for special remark ; they are 

 nearly always widely separated above and beneath, well developed 

 and finely faceted; in Coleomerus, however, they are narrowly 

 separated above. 1 The body is of nearly all possible shapes, from 

 extremely slender and cylindrical as in Barilepton and the Madopte- 

 rides through the oval and elliptical, convex and flattened forms, to 

 the extremely robust and strongly rhomboidal outline of Eurypages, 

 Diorymerus, Pachybaris and some other centrinides. The prothorax 

 is frequently tubulate at apex. The scutellum is very variable 

 in structure and vestiture. The met-episterna are narrow or broad, 

 the legs short or long, with the femora dentate beneath as in 

 many tropical types and, less distinctly, in our own Madarellus and 

 Pseudobaris, or completely unarmed as in the majority of genera ; 

 the tibia? straight, or abnormal in structure as in Eisonyx, and almost 



1 In the Australian Platyphceus lyterioides the eyes are said by Pascoe to be 

 very coarsely faceted and contiguous beneath. 



