118 
Psyche 
[December 
sternites and very readily by the male parameres. These 
pallid forms appear to be characteristic of the species as 
it occurs in Trinidad, but every grade of color exists be- 
tween such forms and the extreme melanic type, which 
differ from the description given above in that the entire 
posterior disc of the pronotum and the hemelytra are black. 
The specimens from Brazil correspond more closely than 
those from Trinidad with the description given by Distant, 
the abdomen below being uniformly of a pale luteous color 
with no trace of a greenish tinge, while the episterna, coxae 
and maculae of the two posterior abdominal sternites in 
the male are pale ochraceous (15’b) and not fulvous. 
D. maurus has some affinities with D. hoivardi in the 
shape of the parameres as well as in the color of the more 
pallid forms and the two species are also related in the 
same manner to two distinct but undescribed species oc- 
curing in Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and the Argentine Re- 
public. The four species form a complex which, judging 
from the synonomy and from a number of incorrectly de- 
termined specimens, has long been confused with D. rufi - 
collis L. I have not had the opportunity to examine any 
type material of Linne’s species, but there can be little 
doubt that Fabricius’ species Lygseus annulus (1803) is 
a color form of Linne’s species. This fact is placed beyond 
reasonable doubt by Stabs statement (1866) that L. annu- 
lus Fabr. is a variety of D. ruficollis L. with the hemelytra 
distinguished by a black hinderpart or a black 1 fascia. 
I have examined Linnaeus’ type in the Museum of Up- 
sala. The identity of L. annulus Fabr. is clear from the 
figure given by Hahn (1834) for Pyrrhocoris annulus=L. 
annulus Fabr., which is distinguished by the shape of the 
pronotum and by the fact that the transverse impressed 
line between the anterior callus and the posterior disc of 
the pronotum is not straight, as in most species, but has 
an anteriorly directed nick on the mid-dorsal line. 
D. ruficollis L. would be intermediate between Hahn’s 
vars. b and c, having the black head of the former and the 
immaculate hemelytra of the latter. I have examined a 
number of specimens, some of them already determined as 
D. annulus Fabr. by Uhler, and I am satisfied that these 
