THE 



ENT03iOL()(}IST'S 

 MONTHLY MAGAZINE: 



VOLUME LVt '^AN2 419L. 



[THIED SERIES, VOL. VL] V^/./. as, -, 



STUDIES IN RHYNCHOPHOKA. 

 BY D. SIIAEP, M.A., F.H.S. 



Viri.— ON PHALIDURA. AMYCTERIDAE* 



The Anii/cteridae comprise probably somewhere about one thousand 

 species at present existing in Australia and forming one of tlie most 

 remarkable items in the wonderful insect-fauna of that region; They 

 have recently attracted the attention of Dr. E. W. Ferguson of Sydney, 

 who has pulilished portions of a revision of the family in the Proe. Linn. 

 Soc. N.S.W., beginning in Vol. xxxiv, 1909. This is a most useful and 

 carefully ))repared work, and forms an excellent preliminary to a more 

 extended study, which we may hope Dr. Fei'guson will be able to under- 

 take when he has completed his present series, and when we may hope 

 the fauna will be better known than it is at present. 



The famil}- is as jq\> in a state when almost all our knowledge is 

 derived from the study of the males, which exhibit very extraordinary 

 characters. The other sex is in the preliminar}' state of our knowledge 

 almost neglected. 



As this communication is limited to the genus usually called 

 Psalidura, and as this has never been satisfactorily defined, it is 

 necessary to begin with some statements as to n(nuenclature that 

 Dr. Ferguson has left open. 



Among the first insects of the family described was the " Curculio 

 minthilis '■' of W. Kirby (Tr. Linn. Soc. xii, 1818). This, as Dr. Ferguson 



* The contribution that appeared in this Ivlagazini' for July last, was nnmberod as "4" of the 

 series, but it should have been VII. No. 4 was published by tlie Ent. Soc. London in litlt*. No. 5 by 

 the Hawaiian Ent. Soc. in 1918, and No. appeared in the Journal of the New York Eut. Soc. 1918. 



