180 REVISION OF THE GENUS PAROPSIS, 



area, resembling those of the insect which I regard as the ^ of 

 dilatata, Er., (but in that species they are very much less numerous); 

 in the hinder half the elevations become closely packed granules 

 like those of reticulata. In the unique type the verrucse and 

 granules are of an ivory white colour. A specimen in Mr. 

 Masters' collection, which I regard as a variety, from the same 

 region, has the prothorax a trifle more transverse and its sides 

 slightly sinuate. 



Tropical Queensland; taken by the late Mr. Cowley. 



P. DILATATA, Er. 



I have already alluded to the fact that the males of Paropsis 

 are usually less convex in form than the females. This sexual 

 difference is exaggerated to an extreme in the Tasmanian insect 

 that I take to be dilatata. The male agrees with Erichson's 

 description in being less convex than i7icar7iata, but the female 

 is notably more convex than the female of that species with its 

 elytra very evidently gibbous about the middle of the suture, and 

 is one of the most convex forms in this group of the genus. The 

 species is easily distinguishable from incarnata, Er., Charyhdis^ 

 Stal (cfctomarm. Marsh.), reticulata, Marsh., and elytrura, Blackb., 

 (the aggregate among which Mr. Baly thought it to stand), apart 

 from sexual characters by the much less even distribution of its 

 elytral sculpture and the strong subangular dilatation of the 

 elytra about the middle of their lateral outline. Its sexual 

 characters make it an isolated species in the genus, but I think 

 its place in a natural arrangement would be not far from 

 lonyicoryiis, Blackb., (another isolated species) with which it seems 

 to have a good deal of affinity. Owing to the great diversity 

 between the male and female I have been obliged to place the 

 sexes in separate aggregates in my tabulation. 



P. MiNTHA, sp.nov. 



$. Sat late ovata; minus fortiter convexa (elytrorum longitu- 

 dine e latere visa quam altitudo fere duplo majori, altitudine 

 majori vix ante elytrorum medium posita); testaceo-brunnea, 



