142 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Body dark piceous, rather glossy, thickly punctured. Nose very retuse, or rather with a large 

 sinus ; mandibles shorter than the head, acute, armed on their inner side with a stout tooth with 

 the segment of a circle taken out of it ; antennae pale chestnut : prothorax with the lateral margin 

 obtusangular, subcrenate, and reflexed ; disk longitudinally impuncturcd, and obsoletely channelled : 

 scutellum channelled, impunctured : elytra furrowed : cubit serrulate and denticulate, two sharp teeth 

 longer than the rest at the apex; tarsi chestnut. 



This is the smallest species of the stag-beetle tribe. As Schonherr has not placed it under Pla- 

 tycerns, but under Lucanus, and as the insect here described is a true Platycerus, it should seem 

 that he either did not know L. piceus, or that I am mistaken in my reference. My specimen 

 agrees exactly with the short description in the Systema Eleutheratorum, but I have no opportunity 

 of consulting Weber. 



Family PASSALID^. Passalidans. 



LXXVI. Genus PASSALUS. 



(193) 1. Passalus interruptus. Interrupted Passalus. 



Passalus interruptus. Fab. Ent. Si/st. ii, 240, 1. 



Lucanus interruptus. Linn. Syst. Nat. ii, 560, 4. Oliv. Ent. i, 1, 25, t. iii, / 5? 



Passalus cornutus. Fab. Syst. Eleuth. ii, 256, 3? 



Length of the body 14— lp 2 inch. 



Many taken in the Journey from New York to Cumberland-house. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Body black or piceous, underneath sometimes rufo-piceous, impunctured, glossy. Head with 

 a crooked horn between the eyes pointing towards the mouth, and a triangular elevation adjoining 

 each eye on the inner side ; labrum with a deep sinus ; mandibles with three teeth at the extremity, 

 and one in the middle of the upper side ; knob of the antenna? consisting of three hairy joints, the 

 outer one thicker than the others and curved : prothorax channelled, impressed on each side near 

 the base ; under a powerful lens several scattered very minute punctures may be discovered on its 

 surface; the ora, or undersides of the prothorax, 5 are likewise punctured, and soft with tawny hairs: 

 elytra furrowed ; furrows punctured : cubit many-toothed ; intermediate tibia; densely bearded, on 

 the outside, with tawny hairs. 



The bent or nodding horn on the head of the species here described has generally been taken for 

 a sexual character ; but I am inclined to regard this as a mistaken notion. Specimens thus circum- 



5 See Introd. to Ent. iii, 368, i, 1, a. 



