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REVISION OF THE AUSTRALIAN AMARYGMIDES. 



By THE Rev. T. Blackburn, B.A., Cork, Mem. 



Part. I. 



THE GENUS CHALGOPTERUS. 



In respect of number both of species and specimens this sub- 

 family of the Tenebrionidce occupies a very prominent place in the 

 Australian fauna. The great beauty and brilliant colouring of 

 many of its types together with their large size render it likely to 

 prove most attractive to the collector and student. And yet there 

 is probably scarcely a group of genera in the whole of the Austra- 

 lian Goleoptera in which the proportion of named species is smaller. 

 This is probably attributable to two causes ; the one that on 

 account of the plentiful occurrence and bright colours of many 

 Amarygmides the sub-family was well to the front among the 

 Coleoptera taken home to Europe by the earlier collectors and 

 described in the brief fashion in which most of the earlier authors 

 " knocked off" our Australian insects — often in five to ten words 

 — so that now the student in approaching it is confronted with a 

 formidable array of names, which are mere names and which could 

 be reliably connected with the insects they belong to only in those 

 cases where the original types are still extant, and by means of an 

 exploration of all the principal museums of Europe. The other 

 cause of the scanty work that has been done on the Aviarygmides 

 in later times is no doubt the fact that these insects are extremely 

 variable in respect of colours and extremely closely allied inter se, 

 so that nothing short of a very careful study of a very large 

 collection of specimens would seem likely to lead to any satis- 

 factory results. 

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