Mr. T. V. Wollaston on the Aphanarthra of the Canaries. 163 



XVI. On the Aphanarthra of the Canary Islands. 

 By T. VERNON WOLLASTON, M.A., F.L.S. 



THE little genus Aphanarthrum was established by myself in 

 1854 (vide Ins. Mad. 292, tab. vi. f. 2) to contain a minute and 

 curiously-coloured Coleopterous wood-borer which I detected, in 

 the summer of 1850, at a very lofty elevation in the mountains 

 of Madeira. This insect was attached exclusively to the gigantic 

 Euphorbia mellifera, Linn. fil. ; and I described it under the 

 name of Aphanarthrum Euphorbia. Two separate sojourns, 

 however, subsequently, in the Canaries, which may be called the 

 region of Euphorbias, gave me an opportunity of examining 

 carefully the rotten stems of the various members of that singular 

 genus of plants, so largely represented in those islands ; and I 

 consequently soon perceived that there were many species of 

 Aphanar 'thrum, all of them remarkably well denned and never 

 merging into each other, but more or less moulded on the same 

 pattern, ornamented by modifications of the same anomalous 

 tints, and deriving their entire subsistence from the branches of 

 the decaying Euphorbias which abound on the mountain-slopes 

 of intermediate altitudes throughout the whole seven islands of 

 the Canarian archipelago. Whilst some of the Aphanarthra 

 would appear to infest, almost equally, several kinds of Euphor- 

 bias, and to live in company (often in the utmost profusion), 

 others seem to be confined to particular ones ; and what I pro- 

 pose in the following paper is, to describe the nine species which 

 have been hitherto discovered in the Canaries, and to point out 

 the exact Euphorbias on which they, each of them, subsist. I 

 may, however, first state that, having thus obtained an insight 

 into their modes of life, I commenced a search at Madeira also, 

 during the spring of last year, in the stems of the E. piscatoria 

 of lower altitudes; and, in conjunction with my friends Mr. 

 Bewicke and Sefior Moniz, obtained two additions to the fauna 

 of that island, both of them identical with the Canarian ones, 

 the E. piscatoria being alike distributed over the Madeiran and 

 Canarian groups. Hence, up to the present date of our researches, 

 we have, in all, ten species of Aphanarthrum (if indeed the first 

 and last of the nine here enumerated have not eventually to be 

 treated as generically separate), two of which are common to 

 Madeira and the Canaries, whilst one (the A. Euphorbia) is 

 peculiarly Madeiran, and seven are peculiarly Canarian. 



Fam. Tomicidse. 



Genus APHANARTHRUM. 



Woll., Ins. Mad. p. 292, tab. vi. f. 2 (1854). 



1. Aphanarthrum luridum, n. sp. 

 A. lurido-testaceum, pilis longiusculis suberectis sparse vestitum ; 



