330 LIFE-HISTOKIES OF AUSTRALIAN COLEOPTERA, 



this, together with the castings, forming irregular excrescences 

 upon the branches. 



The beetle is 2| lines in length, of a general creamy buff colour, 

 due to a dense growth of fine hairs' covering the dark chocolate 

 coloured elytra, the natural colour visible only on the snout; 

 the centre of the thorax and from the shoulders for about two- 

 thirds of the back pale reddish-brown, thickly interspersed with 

 fine black spines or bristles commencing on the thorax, and 

 increasing in number towards the middle of the elytra, where 

 they form a dark patch. The thorax is further ornamented with 

 two pairs of small downy plumes on the sides, and the elytra are 

 broadly impressed with coarsely punctured striae. 



The beetle is found at large upon its food plant early in 

 November; most of my specimens were obtained on a large patch 

 of the bushes at the head of the Double Bay Valley. 



DOTICUS PESTILENS, Ollill. 



Larva 2 to 21- lines in length; pale yellow, with the apical 

 portion of the abdomen slightly ferruginous; head small and 

 orbicular, partly hidden by the thorax; jaws small, with the tips 

 divided into two pointed teeth, with a larger and more angular 

 one on the inner edge; segments rounded, the abdominal ones 

 forming a double fold along the sides, the under fold smallest, tip 

 of the abdomen curled inwards, and the whole larva clothed with 

 long hairs. 



The larv?e feed in the interior of lumpy reddish-brown galls, 

 produced in the first instance, I think, by the attacks of lepidop- 

 terous larvae, upon the tips of the branchlets of Acacia decurrens; 

 the galls or rather after-growths upon the twigs become dead and 

 dry up in Februar}^; and at this season nearly every gall is 

 tenanted with a little grub, covered with woody dust. 



The beetle, about 3 lines in length, dark brown in colour and 

 covered with greyish down, was found in the box containing the 

 galls about a week after they were collected. It has a peculiar 

 way of jumping w^hen touched. 



