V. 
CRYPTODESMUS AND ITS ALLIES. 
Under the name Cryptodesmus a great variety of forms has been 
described, many it is believed with no close affinities to each other or 
to the type of the genus. Much of this confusion has resulted from 
the fact that the characters of the typical species have thus far re- 
mained in doubt, and that the author of the generic name, without 
giving a satisfactory account of his type, described other unrelated 
species under Cryptodesmus, from which the characters of the genus 
have been wrongly inferred. To further complicate matters, Cryp- 
todesmus alatus (Ptrs.) was not a single species, but the three typical 
specimens belong to three species and two genera, both very distinct 
from Cryptodesmus. It is here proposed to indicate and briefly char- 
acterize these and other new genera. 
Family CRYPTODESMID^ (Karsch), 1879. 
Mitth. Muench. Ent. Ver. p. 143. 
The character ‘ ‘ pores wanting ’ ’ seems to apply nowhere in this 
family ; I have found pores in all the African, American, and Asiatic 
forms examined. It certainly does not apply to the name in the re- 
stricted sense in which it is here used. The genus Cryptodesmus 
(Ptrs.) is as yet monotypic, and was based on Cr. olfersii (Bdt.), a 
Brazilian species in the Berlin Museum. The antennae are distinctly 
clavate ; the first segment widely exceeds the head, and has the anterior 
edge even, but with a regular row of flattish granules just behind the 
margin all around ; it is as wide as the second segment. Segments 
dorsally ornamented with three regular, transverse rows of small, 
though distinct, subconic granules, each provided with a hair ; the lat- 
eral and posterior margins are sinuate-dentate. Pores of the usual dis- 
tribution, distinct, submarginal, located near the middle of the lateral 
edge on anterior segments, more remote and farther back on posterior. 
The dorsal surface has none of the flattened, radiating areas and stri- 
ations, nor the wide carinae of the African and other forms which I 
have proposed to call Pterodesmidae. The relationships of the other 
Neotropical genera do not seem to lie, however, directly with Ptero- 
desmus, but rather with African forms which have two or four 
longitudinal rows of tubercles enlarged and coalesced to form dorsal 
crests or carinae, and which under the following name it is proposed to 
separate from the Stylodesmidae. 
Brandtia, p. 19. 
