1874.] 119 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF LIBURNIA FROM BISKRA 



(ALGERIA). 

 Br JOHN SCOTT. 



In the epring of this year, MM. Lethierry and Puton made a 

 pili^riniage to Algeria in scarcli of insects, as, I believe, they have done 

 before, and great success seems to have attended their enterprise, as 

 each succeeding journey has added novelties to the fauna. I can see 

 no reason why the greater portion of the insects found on the extra 

 European portion of the basin of the Mediterranean should not occur 

 on the most southerly shores of our continent ; climate and soil are 

 identical, and similar localities are almost as numerous in the one as in 

 the other. Grreece and the Archipelago on the cast, and Spain on the 

 west, are comparatively unworked places, and Eoumelia, and indeed 

 the whole of the western shore of the Black Sea, may be placed in 

 Ihe same category. 



I understand that Dr. Puton is engaged upon a new edition of his 

 " Catalogue des Hemipteres Heteropteres d'Europe," which may bo ex- 

 pected to be published before this year expii'es, and in it he contemplates 

 adding a list of the insects of this order known to him to occur in the 

 basin of the Mediterranean. This will be of infinite value to all those 

 who are studying the European forms of Hemiptera, which course, I am 

 sorry to say, is almost exclusively confined to continental naturalists. 

 I may add that it was at the request of M. Lethierry, I have under- 

 taken to write the description of the insect that follows, and that there 

 are several other species in different genera, which he purposes 

 describing himself. 



Genus LIBURNIA, Stal. 

 (DELPHACINUS, Fieb.). 

 Species Liburma Putoni, Lethierry (M.S.). 

 Head pentagonal (Section D, Scott in Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. vii, 

 p. 29 (1870). 



Undeveloped form, ,^ . IL-ad, 2^ronotum, and scutellmn, pale tes- 

 taceous. Elytra black, with a broad, transverse, whitish, or pale 

 testaceous-white band at the base. Abdomen black, with a narrow 

 yellowiHli doi'siil line. 



Head — crown pale testaceous, keels ncuto, somewhat prominent ; basal fovere distinet. 



I'''ace and aiilennee jiale testaeeous, keels of the former somewhat acute and 



distinct. J'J^es testaceous, exteriorly fuscous. 

 Thorax — pronoltim and sculellum pale testaceous, shining. Elylra black, with a 



broad, transverse, whitish or pale testaceous-white band at the base ; nerves 



distinct, not granulated ; near each basal angle a pitch v-brown spot ; entire 



