BY REV. T. BLACKBURN. 483 



The preparation of the following tabular statement of the 

 characters of the species in this subgroup has given me more trouble 

 than that of any other tabulation of Australian Coleoijtera that I 

 have ever drawn up, and even now, after careful study of thousands 

 of specimens of this subgroup, I am vevy far from being satisfied 

 with it. I have completely failed to discover any very conspicuous 

 reliable structural characters on which to break up the species 

 into easily i-ecognisable aggregates, and have, after many attempts 

 at a more satisfactory grouping, been obliged to adopt a colour 

 distinction for characterising the main divisions. And here it 

 will be well to remark that I have found it necessary to absolutely set 

 aside from consideration all immature specimens, of which there 

 are many in all collections of these Paropsldes, and which may 

 generally be known by their elytra or abdomen being shrunken in 

 such fashion that the two sides are not symmetrical in form. 

 Hence it follows that the characters cited in the following table 

 will not serve for the identification of immature examples of 

 Pm-opsis, for which I can recommend no other course than severely 

 throwing them away. 



Among the species of this subgroup when living (or when their 

 colours have been revived as specified above) there are three types 

 of colouring. First, there are a number of species, — for the most 

 part of less fragile texture than the others,— which have little (or 

 even no) metallic colouring. Usually these have a more or less 

 faintly golden tone about the base of the elytra and on the disc of 

 the prothorax, and but little more. Then come species having 

 what I call diffused metallic colouring which takes two forms on the 

 elytra, those organs being (their expanded margins which are never, 

 or at any rate only rarely, metallic excepted) either of a beautiful 

 uniform green golden coppery or rosy lustre or uniformly tessel- 

 lated with a vast number of small square silvery or golden spots. 

 When the whole disc of the elytra is metallic the colour is usually 

 shaded in a most curious manner, the deepest shades lying along 

 the lines of punctures and producing the remarkable effect of 

 making the elytra appear to a casual glance deeply sulcata, 

 although in reality there is no sulcation whatever. I take this to 



