108 Mr. F. Walker on some new species of Chalcidites. 



accumulation, to have contributed essentially to the formation of 

 the coal. 



We may moreover remark, that this genus being excluded from 

 the monocotyledonous division; Flabellaria bar assif alia of M. de 

 Sternberg, from the coal-mines of Bohemia, being also rejected 

 from the family of the Palms to be arranged with the gymno- 

 spermous division; and the genus Artisia appearing to be simi- 

 larly situated; a few fruits only remain in these ancient strata to 

 represent this large division of the vegetable kingdom, and the 

 structure of these is too imperfectly known to allow of our placing 

 them with any probability in this natural division, when we are 

 unacquainted with either their stems or leaves. 



Hence everything leads us to conclude from the researches 

 which have hitherto been made, that the terrestrial vegetation of 

 the period of the coal-formation was limited to two of the large 

 divisions of the vegetable kingdom — the acrogenous or vascular 

 Cryptogamia, and the gymnospermous dicotyledonous Phanero- 

 gamia. 



XIX. — Characters of some undesciibed species of Chalcidites. 

 By Francis Walker, Esq., F.L.S. 



1. Chalcis Alphius, mas et fern. Nigra, antennis nigris, pedihus 

 flavis nigro et piceo cinctis, metafemoribus rufis flavo-variis aut 

 nigris, alis limpidis. (Corp. long. lin. 2 — 2^ ; alar. lin. 3^ — 4.) 



Male. — Body black, convex : head and thorax punctured : head 

 nearly as broad as the thorax ; vertex broad ; front impressed : an- 

 tennae black, filiform, nearly as long as the thorax : pro thorax trans- 

 verse, subquadrate : scutum very large ; sutures of the parapsides 

 distinct ; axillae remote from each other ; scutellum obconic, having 

 a rim behind : propodeon obconical, declining, rugulose : podeon very 

 short : abdomen smooth, shining, narrower and much shorter than 

 the thorax ; metapodeon occupying more than half the dorsum ; oc- 

 toon and following segments short : legs yellow ; coxae black ; pro- 

 femora and mesofemora black, their tips yellow ; metafemora red, 

 thick, partly yellow on the outside and armed beneath with nine or 

 ten little black teeth ; protibiae encircled with red ; mesotibiae en- 

 circled with a piceous band ; metatibiae curved, piceous at the base 

 and in the middle ; tips of the tarsi piceous : wings limpid ; squa- 

 mulae yellow ; nervures fulvous ; humerus much less than half the 

 length of the wing ; ulna not half the length of the humerus ; radius 

 more than half the length of the ulna ; cubitus hardly half the length 

 of the radius ; stigma very small. 



The colour of the legs varies ; the protibiae are sometimes red ; the 

 mesotibiae black, yellow at the base and at the tip ; the metafemora 

 altogether black ; the nervures of the wings piceous. The antennae 



