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Systena - 7

determinable. The prothorax, too, is not contracted near the base, as in typical specimens of Systena (probably deformed), the sides being widest at the base and narrowed anteriorly in nearly a straight line. The head is shining and deeper yellow than the prothorax, with a brown labrum and tubercles, and on each side of the vertex are 6 or 7 coarse punctures. The antennal joints are of the same proportions as in S. blanda, with the first four basal joints paler than the outer ones. The [[strikethrough]] entire [[/strikethrough]] prothorax is pale yellow, with the anterior lateral margin slightly edged with deeper brown, shining, rather irregularly punctate with a group of coarser punctures near the base, and with a short basal impression on each side. The elytra are shining pale yellow with barely visible traces of a sutural and a lateral marginal vitta joined at the apex; the punctuation is somewhat obsolete but dense. The metasternum and the abdomen are dark brown and the legs pale.

At first glance the very pale, somewhat distorted specimen from San Diego, with scarcely any sign of vittae, does not resemble the dark vittate specimen from San Jose, but a close comparison shows the two to be very similar in structure, and other specimens are found that present intergradations in color. A series of specimens from Sacramento, Calif., shows a wide color range from specimens even darker than typical ligata to some nearly as pale as typical ochracea. In several there are only traces of the pale elytral vittae, and one specimen from Chico has entirely dark elytra. Other specimens fully as pale as the type of ochracea occur in a large series from Huntington Beach, Calif., a series in which there are also dark specimens.

This Pacific coast Systena so closely resembles Systena blanda that it is unlikely that it is more than a subspecies of blanda . The aedeagus of the western specimens is very similar, the tip only being a little more pointed. Again the Pacific coast specimens are slightly larger and usually more deeply and coarsely punctate, the prothorax being usually but not always more densely punctate, and the coloring is often more variable in a single series from one locality than is found in the more eastern specimens from such widely separated points as Pennsylvania