96 CASEY 



slender, black, paler at tip; prothorax fully three-fourths wider 

 than long, wider behind the middle than at base, the sides almos 

 evenly arcuate, slightly more converging anteriorly, the apex very 

 broadly and circularly sinuate, more than three-fourths as wide as 

 the base, the angles barely right and slightly blunt, the hind angles 

 right, not at all blunt; surface rather finely and sparsely but 

 strongly punctate, becoming more closely, unusually coarsely and 

 somewhat irregularly so laterally, the marginal bead fine; scu- 

 tellum rather small, not strongly transverse, triangular; elytra 

 nearly one-half longer than wide, as wide as the prothorax, the 

 sides straight, the apex gradually narrowed to the obtuse tip ; sur- 

 face smooth, sparsely and rather strongly punctate suturally, some- 

 what coarsely and less sparsely laterally ; prosternum rather 

 strongly punctate, the process sparsely so, unusually declivous 

 apically; abdomen very minutely, feebly and sparsely punctate. 

 Length 9.3 mm.; width 4.25 mm. (c?). California (Barstow). 



punctipes Csy. 



In the catalogue of the Coleoptera of Baja California, p. 

 349, Horn cites -pallidicornis as occurring there, without more 

 definite indication of locality ; the identification, moreover, is 

 open to a good deal of doubt, as nearly all the species are very 

 local in habitat. Verna has some of the characters of Group 

 I, and is undoubtedly an intermediate form ; it has more espe- 

 cially the grooved and narrowly reflexed thoracic side margins 

 of the allies of abdominalis, but its much smaller size prompts 

 me to include it with Group II, for convenience of identifica- 

 tion ; degener is likewise aberrant, having some of the charac- 

 teristics of the ovalis group. The type of lassenica has, besides, 

 the sinuation of the sides of the prothorax near the base, two 

 oblique impressed discal lines from lateral fourth very near the 

 base to lateral sixth near basal fifth ; these lines are observable 

 occasionally in other species of all the groups and seem to be 

 adventitious to some extent but they are bilaterally symmetric. 



Group III. Type viatica. 



This is one of the largest groups of the genus and the most 

 difficult in the delimitation and definition of specific forms. 

 The group inhabits the coast regions from San Francisco Bay 

 well into Oregon, from which State I have a single species, and 

 but few of its components occur as far to the eastward as the 

 foothills of the Sierras ; more definite localities will be men- 

 tioned when known. The very small species allied to -puncti- 



