12 
SlLYANUS MERCATOR FauV. 
When M. Fauvel described this species he remarked that it ought to 
be equally cosmopolitan with surinamemis, ergo, it ought to be found 
in North America. It remained unrecognized here, however, until the 
present year. At the Columbian Exposition I col- 
lected examples from Venezuela, Liberia, and Italy; 
from the Atlanta Exposition were obtained specimens 
from Venezuela, and quite recently the species was 
received in a lot of ground flaxseed from Calla, Ohio. 
There are in the National Museum collection speci- 
mens from Los Angeles, Cal., and from Astoria, 111., 
and I have now living material from an unknown 
source, but taken at Washington, D. C. I have also 
seen specimens from Lower California and Arizona. 
The close relationship of mercator to our common 
saw-toothed grain beetle makes reasonably certain 
their virtual identity as regards development, nor is 
it probable that they differ in any degree in food 
habits. The former has been found in France, according to M. Guille- 
beau, in the debris of peanuts, in granaries of wheat, aud under bark 
of sycamore in the vicinity of mills. In the writer's 
own experience it breeds also in almonds, English wal- 
nuts, corn meal and the fruit of the exotic plants Myros- 
permum frutescens and Aleurites triloba. The Illinois 
material was breeding in dried currants. 
S. mercator differs from surinamensis chiefly by the 
much narrower tuberculiform tempora aud in having 
the head and trochanters in the male unarmed. The 
accompanying illustration (fig. 3) will serve as a further 
means for its identification if compared with fig. 4. 
To distinguish this species from related forms I sug- 
gest the name merchant grain beetle, the specific name 
being a translation of the Latin mercator. 
Fig. 3.—Silvanus mer- 
cator: head and tho- 
rax — enlarged ; an- 
tenna at right — more 
enlarged (original). 
SlLVANUS GOSSYPII n. sp. 
The search for bicornis and mercator led to the dis- 
FlG. 4.— Silvanus sur- 
inamensis: heetle — 
enlarged (author's 
covery of a species not mentioned in Guillebeau's or illustration). 
Keitter's papers on this group, and so far as I can learn 
it is new to science. This resembles surinamensis superficially, though 
it is smaller and is conspicuous by the structure of the antennae. The 
penultimate and the antepenultimate joints are nearly twice as wide as 
long, and in the three specimens in hand — probably males — the head, 
femora, and trochanters are unarmed. It is of similar color to other 
species of this group, its dense covering of long yellowish pubescence 
giving it a fulvous appearance. A technical description follows. 
