80 THE ENTOMOLOGY OF THK GRASS-TREES, 



from whicli it only differs in colour, being dull white. The beetles 

 are often very numerous, twenty or thirty being obtained from 

 one stump. 



Beetle 1^ lines in length, broad and oval, black and shining; 

 head small, round in front; thorax smooth, truncate behind; 

 elytra smooth in the centre, with four very distinct strife on each 

 side, and truncate at the apex; the tip of the abdomen sloping 

 downwards. 



Allecula subsulcata (?), Macl. 



Larva is a typical heteromerous wire worm; slender, cylindrical, 

 smooth, and shining, about an inch in length, of a uniform ochreous 

 colour; head and tip of the abdomen ferruginous, and an apical 

 narrow band round the abdominal segments dark brown; head 

 small, rounded in front, with slender sickle-shaped jaws, short 

 antennse, and long drooping palpi; legs are comparatively long, 

 with slender tarsal claws. 



They are very active little creatures, living in the rich black 

 mould left by the decaying caudex; sometimes they are very 

 numerous; common in July and August. 



Pupa pale yellow, short and angular, with the head drawn down 

 over the thorax, antennje curling round under the fore legs, and 

 coming over the hind ones, labial palpi projecting over the fore 

 legs and showing the peculiar axe-shaped terminal joint; outer 

 edges of the abdominal segments flanged and finely serrate, the 

 anal one terminating in two fine spines, wing cases short and 

 wrinkled. 



Beetle 7 lines in length, all black, except the last three joints 

 of antennte and last two joints of the tarsi, which are pale 

 ferruginous; head and thorax closely and finely punctured; 

 antennae 11-jointed, long, slender, and cylindrical, 2nd joint very 

 short, 3rd longest, apical joint of the labial palpi large and axe- 

 shaped; legs long, apex of tibia? and the tarsi clothed with fine 

 reddish hairs; elytra rugose and deeply grooved with parallel striae, 

 thickly and deeply punctured; all the ventral surface closely 

 punctured. 



