The little group Rybaxis, call it genus or subgenus as you prefer, was established by Saulcy in 1874 to contain a few species definitely separable from Bryaxis by the presence of a sharply impressed biarcuate groove connecting the lateral pronotal fovem, ad a deep submarginal stria on the vertical flanks of the elytra. At that time two species only were known in our fauna which possessed the characters of the new genus, viz.--Bryaxis conjuncta described by Le Conte in 1850, and B. clavata

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... bed by Brendel in 1865 as a supposed "northern climatical form of conjuncta, but declared by him the year following to be a distinct species, differing from conjuncta in certain sexual characters, notably in having the anterior trochanters armed with a short sharp spine, the same being unarmed in conjuncta. In the Crotch Check List of 1873 Dr. Horn changed the name clavata to brendelii, the former being preoccupied. On page xli of the Horn Bibliography by Henshaw (Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. 1898) there is a synonymical note from Mr. Schwarz pointing out that while Dr. Brendel had discovered that there were two distinct species included under the name Bryaxis conjuncta, one with the front trochanters of the male spined, the other not, through a failure to read Le Conte's original description Brendel in describing his clavata with spined trochanters succeeded only in rediscribing Le Conte's conjuncta, thus leaving without a name the species with simple male trochanters which he had wrongly assumed to be the true conjuncta. Oddly enough Le Conte himself, apparently completely forgetful of his original description, follows Brendel's lead and in his table of the genus in the "Transactions" of 1880 uses the name conjuncta for the species with simple male trochanters. The Schwarz note of nearly thirty years ago however seems to have been generally overlooked and the error there pointed out still awaits adjustment; moreover some recent study by the