14 Mr. T. V. Wollastcm on certain Musical Curculionidse. 



stigma, it likewise agrees ; and the fruit is also a berry, seated 

 on the persistent cupular base of the calyx. In its general 

 habit it quite resembles other species of Condalia, its leaves 

 being alternate, and it has no spines. Dr. Philippi describes its 

 flowers as being pentamerous ; but in the specimen I examined 

 they were certainly tetramerous, as in the other species of the 

 genus. I do not doubt the accuracy of the former statement j 

 for it is very probable that its flowers may occasionally be ab- 

 normally pentamerous. I add below, in a note, my observations 

 upon the above-mentioned plant*. 



III. — On certain Musical Curculionidse ; with Descriptions of 

 two new Plinthi. By T. Vernon Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S. 



Whilst residing in the remote and almost inaccessible village 

 of Taganana (towards Point Anaga), in the north of Teneriffe, 

 during the spring of 1859, my attention was called to a pecu- 

 liarity in a beautiful species of Acalles (I believe the A. argillosus, 

 Schonh.), which I do not remember to have seen recorded con- 

 cerning any other Coleopterous insect whatsoever. It was on 

 the 22nd of May that my Portuguese servant (whom I had sent 

 out to collect) Drought me home eleven specimens of a large 

 Acalles which he had captured within the dried and hollow 

 stems of a plant growing on the rocky slopes towards the sea, 

 and which I have but little doubt (from his description) was the 

 Kleinia neriifolia, DC, so common throughout the islands of 

 the Canarian archipelago. I had been accustomed to find such 

 a number of insects in the dead branches of the various Euphor- 

 bias, that my attendant also had discovered, from time to time, 

 the locus quo of many a rarity by imitating my method of .re- 

 search ; and, to use his own expression, he was about, in this 

 instance, to throw away these rotten stems as worthless, when 

 he was arrested by a loud grating, or almost chirping, noise, as 



* Condalia Maytenoides; — Sciadophila Maytenoides, Phil. Linn, xxviii. 

 618 ; — Colletia Maytenoides, Griseb. loc. cit. p. 619 ; — frutex vix orgyalis, 

 inermis, ramulis gracilibus, striatis, subglabris, valde foliosis ; foliis alternis, 

 elliptico- vel lanceolato-oblongis, utrinque acutis, integris, margine cartila- 

 gineo, subrevoluto vel interdum obsolete crenulato, glaberrimis, subtus 

 paulo pallidioribus, crassiusculis, nervis superne omnino immersis, subtus 

 vix prominulis, rachi superne sulcato, infra prominente ; petiolo brevi, 

 pallido, canaliculato ; stipulis parvis, caducissimis ; floribus axillaribus, 

 solitariis, vel binis, glaberrimis, calycis tubo urceolato, brevi, limbo 4-fido, 

 sequilongo; staminibus 4, laciniis dimidio brevioribus, erectis, antheris 

 parvis, globosis, apicifixis ; ovario glabro ; stylo staminibus sequilongo, 

 glabro, crassiusculo, subulato; stigmate 3-dentato. Baeca (sec. Phil.) 

 nigra, basi angustata, insipida. — Chile, in nemoribus Prov. Valdiviae. — 

 v. s. in hb. Mus. Paris. (Philippi). 



