166 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN COLEOPTERA, 



Types in Coll. Carter. 



Adelium mccullochi, n.sp. (Plate v., fig.ll). 



Ovate, robust, nitid bronze, glabrous, legs greenish-black, 

 antenna? red. 



Head coarsely, not closely punctate, antenna? with joint 3 as 

 long as 4-5 combined. Prothorax arcuate at apex, truncate at 

 base, anterior angles obtuse, sides widely rounded, sinuate behind, 

 posterior angles widely rectangular; disc with shallow and ill- 

 defined medial channel, irregularly and rather coarsely punctate, 

 with some scattered fovea?; foliate margins horizontal and sepa 

 rated from disc by short sulcate fovea*. Elytra striate-punctate, 

 the seriate punctures of unequal size, intervals more or less con- 

 vex, pustulose on the posterior half; underside and epipleura? 

 nearly smooth. Dimensions: 16x7Jmm. 



Hah.— Walcha (New England District, N.S.W. ; A. R. 

 McCulloch). 



Three specimens in the Australian Museum, taken by Mr. 

 McCulloch, after whom I name the species, show an ally of A. 

 pustulosum Blackb., and of A. snbdeprpssum Cart. From both, 

 it is readily distinguished by the well marked sinuation of the 

 posterior sides of the prothorax, and the widely rectangular pos- 

 terior angles. 



Type in the Australian Museum, Sydney. 



Adelium abbreviation Boisd. — With a large amount of material 

 from widely separated districts of Tasmania, I have been much 

 exercised with the vagaries of variation in this species. Here is 

 a fine field for the species maker. Nevertheless, though there is 

 good evidence of species in-the-making, I am inclined rather to 

 withdraw one of my own species, A./oveatum, into the ranks of 

 a variety rather than add to the confusion of this difficult genus. 

 As other students of the group may differ from this view, I pro- 

 pose below to name and describe certain apparently fixed varieties, 

 first describing what I consider to be the typical form, from the 

 Hobart district, a certain collecting ground of the Astrolabe 

 voyagers. 



