CARABID/E. 



17 



Having arrived at this point, I must now retrace my steps, and starting again 

 from another branch of the Cicindelidans (Cicindela) proceed by the Carabldce. 



(b ) Obtusipennia. Kirb. 

 (a) Nobilia. Kirb. 



Family CARABID^. 



Genus CARABUS. Linn. 



(13) 1. Carabus vietinghovii. (Adams.) Vietinghoff 's Carabus. 



Carabus Vietinghovii Ad. Mem. iii, 170, t. xii, f. 3. Fisch. Ent. Russ. i, 98, t. ix, /. 19. De J. Coleopt. ii, 61, 21. 



PLATE I, FIG. 3. 



Length of the body 10 lines. 



DESCRIPTION. 

 ? 



Body very black and glossy. Head punctured between the eyes with confluent but not minute 

 punctures ; anterior part of the front wrinkled on each side, but the nose and upper-lip are quite 

 smooth ; the seven terminal joints of the antenna? are brown : the prothorax is nearly square with 

 the sides rounded anteriorly and the posterior angles a little prominent ; it is deeply channelled, 

 transversely wrinkled in the disk, confluently but not minutely punctured on the sides; the disk 

 also is black, but the sides exhibit shades of dark blue and green, at the margin they are of a most 

 brilliant ruddy copper, some of the anterior punctures also appear as if gilded : the elytra are rough 

 and as it were reticulated with longitudinal and transverse elevations, the former nearly arranged in 

 lines which produce deep cavities ; the disk is of a fine deep blue, the sides green and the lateral 

 margin of the same ruddy copper as that of the prothorax. The body underneath is quite smooth 

 in the disk, with some irregular elevations and depressions on the sides : the sides of the antepectus, 

 or forebreast, are of a fine green ; the intermediate segments have each a pair of impressions from 

 which a hair emerges. This is most visible in the male. 



I at first regarded this splendid insect as a new species. I thought it, indeed, very near Carabus 

 Vietinghovii, but as it did not altogether agree either with Dr. Fischer's figure or description, and 

 was found in another quarter of the globe, I regarded it as distinct ; but having received from my 

 friend Mr. Hope, a Russian specimen of that insect, I find no difference sufficient to constitute a 

 species. In that specimen the marginal gilding of the prothorax and elytra is greener with scarcely 

 any of the ruddy hue of copper which gives such brilliance to the American specimen. It has been 

 observed that the plants on the other side of the rocky mountains are of an Asiatic type, and the 

 present animal, and some others I shall hereafter notice, furnish a proof that several of the insects 

 are similarly circumstanced. The sculpture of the elytra of this species is precisely that of a Procerus, 

 to which genus I at first referred it, but the tarsi of the male are dilated which is the character 

 assigned to Carabus. The only specimen taken was brought over in spirits, and affords a striking 

 proof of the excellence as well as convenience of that mode of destroying and preserving beetles for 



D 



