Capt. P. P. King's South American Coleoptera. - 447 



*74. Oryctomorphus pictus, fVaterh. 



Piceiis, clypeo bidentato, fronte tuberculato, thorace impressione central!, 

 elytrorum area seutelhim cingente strigaque in singulo obliqua undulata 

 nitid^ feiTugineis (Tab. XLI. fig. 1. ? ). 



Length 10 lines, breadth fully 5. 



Pitchy-coloured, shining ; antennae ferruginous, the club long and slender in the male (fig. a. 

 female) : head trigonate, thickly punctured with a small pointed tubercle on the crown ; 

 clypeus with the sides sinuated, the apex notched and recurved, the black mandibles 

 projecting on either side : thorax thrice as broad as the head, transverse, semiovate- 

 truncate, the anterior margin and base both semicircular, with distinct scattered punc- 

 tures, a broad hollow impression down the centre vanishing behind ; scutel ovate-tri- 

 gonate, very smooth, the apex ochreous : elytra much broader than the thorax behind 

 the middle, and thrice as long, indistinctly and irregularly punctured, leaving a smooth 

 line down the suture, and 4 others on each elytron : a semicircular bright and deep 

 ochreous space round the scutel, and an oblique stripe of the same colour from the 

 shoulder, in the direction of the sutural apex, but vanishing beyond the middle, where 

 it is dilated and approaches the suture : underside ferruginous-brown, densely covered 

 with soft long tawny pubescence; pygidium exposed, finely punctured; margin of 

 penultimate abdominal segment ferruginous : legs of the same colour ; thighs short and 

 stout, hinder oval; tibiae short, anterior not broad, tridentate, the others Coarsely 

 punctured and notched externally, with an oblique denticulated ridge on the outside. 



The only specimen in Capt. King's collection is a female, taken at Valpa- 

 raiso. Ml'. Waterhouse I find has a male, brought home by Mr. Darwin, which 

 he has described under the name of Gonocheile picta. I have never seen 

 Mons. Gu^rin's characters of his genus Oryctomorphus ; but I conclude from 

 his figure of O. bimaculatus, in the plates of the ' Voyage de la Coquille,' that 

 our insect may be included in that genus. His species differs from ours in 

 having a larger club to the antennse, which is a sexual difference, and the ob- 

 lique ochreous stripes on the elytra are wanting ; whereas in Mr. Waterhouse's 

 male they are much more distinct and extended than in Capt. King's female, 

 which seems to be intermediate. It is therefore not improbable that they may 

 prove to be one species only. 



*75. Chalepus gemmatus, Fab. 

 Geotrupes lugubris, Schonh. Syn, vol. i. p. 21. pi. 2. f. 1. 

 VOIi. XIX. 3 N 



