338 Mr. T. V. Wollaston on a new genus of European Coleoptera. 



have taken to as a last resource, everything in the surrounding 

 country being completely burnt up), on the low maritime hills 

 above Bellem. Believing it, at the time, to constitute the type 

 of a new genus, I have transmitted it, since my return, to 

 Dr. Schaum of Berlin ; and he agrees with me in regarding it as 

 allied to Colotes of Erich son, but unquestionably distinct. It is 

 apparently the Colotes rubripes of Jacquelin-Duval (published in 

 the 10th volume of the French Annales, New Series). At any 

 rate, it agrees exactly, except in structural details, with the in- 

 sect there described ; and I may add that I have received from 

 M. Dert of Bordeaux the selfsame species as my own, under the 

 name of " Colotes rubripes, Jac. -Duval," and, moreover, taken at 

 La Teste beneath dry sea-weed, — thus coming from the actual 

 locality, and captured under precisely similar circumstances, as 

 those from which M. Duval's diagnosis was drawn out. I con- 

 clude, therefore, without the slightest hesitation, that my Lisbon 

 insect and M. Jacquelin -Duval's are, even specifically, identical. 

 But, now, as regards the genus, it is quite clear — unless in- 

 deed (which is not at all likely) M. Dert's insect from La Teste 

 was wrongly referred to the Colotes rubripes — that M. Duval 

 was entirely mistaken in identifying it with Colotes of Erichson, 

 from the published characters of which [vide ' Entomographien/ 

 p. 129) it presents abundant and most obvious differences. If, 

 however, M. Duval did really examine the two sexes, which he 

 professes to have done, it is an anomaly how he could possibly have 

 overlooked the extraordinary distinctive characters of the maxillary 

 palpi of the males : whilst, on the other hand, if he possessed only 

 the males — which I believe to be the case, for he expressly men- 

 tions the largely-developed terminal joint of those organs in the 

 six individuals he described from (though he gives it the wrong 

 shape, and says nothing about the penultimate one being also 

 equally enlarged, thus forcing the insect, as it were, into Erich- 

 son's Colotes, at the expense of facts) — it is no less mysterious 

 how he could have seen five joints in the front tarsi of any of his 

 specimens, for (being all males) they could only have had four. 

 Thus, if I am right in my premises — viz. that M. Dert's insect 

 was correctly determined (which, judging from the description 

 of Colotes rubripes, and its exact locality and habits, I believe to 

 be the case) — it appears pretty evident that M. Duval had only 

 males to work from (for, otherwise, how could he have overlooked 

 the wonderful differences of palpi F), and that therefore, in order 

 to gain them admission into Colotes, he must, in the first place, 

 have merely imagined the anterior feet of some of his examples 

 to be pentamerous, and must, secondly, have altogether ignored 

 the marvellous dilatation of the penultimate joint of their maxil- 

 lary palpi ! 



