Mr. J. Walton on the genus Bruchus. 211 



Mr. Doubleday in East Florida. The male has the antennae pec- 

 tinated, and the female serrated. I have between sixty and seventy 

 examples, with many varieties, of this truly protsean insect, taken 

 out of the interior of the common chickpea {Cicer arietinum, so 

 named from its striking resemblance to a ram^s head), which I 

 obtained from the East India and China ships, lying in the Lon- 

 don and St. Katherine's Docks ; it is called 'Gram^ by the sailors : 

 there is a fine series of the B. pectinicornis in the foreign cabinet 

 of the British Museum and likewise in that of Mr. Kirby, who 

 found them in the same kind of seeds*. 



8. B. villosusf, Fab. (1792), Mus. King of Denmark. 



— Cisti, Payk. (1792), Gyll., Steph., Schonh., Curt, not Fab. 



— ater. Marsh. Syst. Cat., Steph. 



— ater, Kirb. MSS. et Mus. 



This insect, which varies much in size, differs from the follow- 

 ing in having the antennse with the four basal joints small, and 

 of a dull red or piceous colour within ; the thorax transverse, &c. 

 I possess foreign specimens sent to me by Schonherr; and I 

 have carefully examined the four examples in the collection of 

 Mr. Kirby, which are all of this species ; Mr. Kirby gives them 

 in his MS. as the B. ater of Marsham. On the 14th of October 

 last, at Shirley Common, near Croydon, I beat sixteen specimens 

 of this insect decidedly from the broom {Spartium scoparium). 



9. B. Cisti Fab. (1781), Mus. Banks. J 



— canus ? Germ., Schonh., Steph. Man. 



— ater, Curt, not Marsh. 



This species was separated by Mr. Curtis from the preceding, 

 with which it had been confounded in this country ; it differs 

 in having the three basal joints only of the antennse small, and 

 entirely black ; the thorax subcorneal, &c. It varies considerably 

 in size, like its congener B. villosus. (Length 1 — 1^ line.) 



'^ Habitat in floribus Cisti Helianthemi. Mus. Dom. Banks.'' — 

 Fab. Ent. Syst. i. p. 372. 



* See Tntrod. to Ent. by Kirby and Spence, i. p. 1 77. 



t 1 am aware of the inconvenience of changing the specific name of a spe- 

 cies that has been very generally used for fifty years ; but it must be observed 

 that Fabricius first employed the name Cisti for an insect differing from the 

 Cisti of Paykull, and consequently the latter name must sink into a synonym. 

 The B. villosus of Fabricius, according to his Museum, is identical with the 

 Cisti of Paykull. — See Schonherr's Syn. Ins. v. p. 109. 



X Of this remarkable and very distinct species there are now two ex- 

 amples preserved in the Banksian cabinet, pinned through the name : short 

 as the description is (" ater immaculatus ; femoribus muticis "), by Fabricius, 

 it agrees with these insects, and not at all with any other of the six species 

 in the cabinet : therefore they cannot have been transposed, and are un- 

 doubtedly the authentic types of the species referred to in the ' Ent. Syst.' 



P2 



