Mr. J. Walton on the genei^a Oxystoma and Magdalis. 231 



quite certain of the direction of the hair on the forehead, though 

 it appears to be directed forwards, nor of the sex. 



Besides the nine species here described, there have been de- 

 scribed two which do not exactly agree with any specimens I have 

 seen, viz. M. chrysurus, I. Geoff., Guerin, Mag. Zool. 1832, and 

 M, flavicaudatuSy Humboldt. 



XXIII. — Notes, ^c. on the genera of Insects Oxystoma and Mag- 

 dalis. By John Walton, Esq., E.L.S. 



Earn. CURCULIONID.E. 

 Genus Oxystoma, Steph,, Westw.j Spry and Shuckard. 



Mr. Stephens has created this genus for the reception of the 

 following three species, separated by him from that of Apion, 

 which he refers to Dumeril ; but the latter author has taken his 

 characters from Attelabus Pomome of Eabricius*, and it is very 

 remarkable, that Dumeril appears not to have been aware that 

 Kirby had previously characterized the genus Apion as a tribe of 

 insects which includes that species, consequently the name Oxy- 

 stoma of Dumeril is cited by Kirby and Schonherr as a synonym 

 to that of Apion. I have always entertained considerable doubt, 

 from the characters selected by Mr. Stephens, whether Apion 

 fuscirostriSj Ulicis and Genista ought to be separated generically ; 

 Kirby and Curtis have located them in a separate section in the 

 genus Apion, because the rostrum is bent downwards or nutant 

 (a character common to many species), and this appears to be the 

 chief character upon which the new genus Oxystoma is founded. 

 It is generally understood that the female of Oxys. Ulicis, with its 

 remarkable elongate deflexed rostrum, is the type of the genus as 

 figured and referred to in the ^ British Coleoptera ' by Spry and 

 Shuckard, and is also referred to Ap. Ulicis of Kirby by West- 

 wood in his ^Generic Synopsis^; but Stephens describes the second 

 and third joints of the antennae as ^^ subglobose,^-' whereas they are 

 elongate, neither does the form of the rostrum nor the structure of 

 the antennae in the male agree with the characters given by him ; 

 therefore I think he has di-awn them from Oxys. fuscirostris, as 

 it stands first in the genus. The three insects in question approx- 

 imate rather closely in general habit and affinity to some of those 

 species of the genus Apion which are placed by Germar and 

 Schonherr in the section that have their antenna? seated near to 

 the base of the rostrum, and likewise have the rostrum (when in 

 its natural position) deflexed ; for example, the small males of Ap, 



* DuBH^r, Consid. sur les Ins. tab. IC. f. G, 1823. 



