1872.] 7 



The insect which I have just described has beeu returned to me 

 from Paris as ^S*. Sjxirshallii, Denny ; but, apart from the fact of the 

 latter having been originally described by our countryman, who is 

 only recently dead, and to whom the Sci/dmcsjudce of the chief British 

 collections (in all of which that I have seen, S. Sparshallii agrees wdth 

 my conception of that species) in all probability have beeu submitted, 

 I think that the colour, build and pubescence of the insect figured by 

 Denny as Sparshallii evidently point to the species known to us by that 

 name. Denny's description is not very precise ; but the ferruginous 

 colour, gradually clavate antennae (in which his colored figure agrees, 

 the much magnified separate outline having the 8th joint absurdly en- 

 larged, and quite at variance with the description and colored figure), 

 punctured thorax and elytra which he mentions, agree well with our 

 SparshalUi, and not with prceteritus. Against these points, however, 

 must be set the fact that Denny only states the thoracic basal furrow 

 of his insect to extend a little way up the sides, omitting to notice 

 the second minute fovea that occurs in it on each side between the 

 middle and the outer margin. 



Schaum originally (Anal, ent., 1841, jj. 13) merely referred to 

 Denny's Sparshallii as a species which he had not seen, and apparently 

 closely allied to elongatulus : afterwards (Grerm., Zeitschr. f. d. Ent., 

 V, p. 467) he considers he has identified it from Grerman and other 

 examples ; but his mention of its having no foveae in the transverse 

 thoracic groove, of the fact of Erichson's specimen not agreeing with 

 Denny's description in the punctuation of the head and thorax, and 

 of its color also being dark pitchy brown (for which he endeavours to 

 account by considering Denny's specimen to have been immature), 

 show with almost certainty that his insect is that I have just described. 

 Indeed, were it not that, in giving the diagnostic characters of his S. 

 helvolus (p. 467), he states the transverse thoracic basal groove to be 

 not so deep as in his Sparsliallii, I should, as all other characters agree 

 well enough, have no hesitation in considering heli-olus to be identical 

 wdth Denny's Sparsliallii. Thomson's helvolus (Skand. Col., ix, p. 358) 

 has evidently nothing to do with Schaum's species of that name. 



The color and thoracic characters of Fairmaire's SparshalUi (Faun, 

 ent. Fran9., Col., p. 348) agree with Schaum's and not with Denny's 

 species : but the French author terms the thorax square, and much 

 narrower than the elytra, the apex of which is, according to him, 

 abruptly rounded. He appears to have described a melanqe of the 

 two species ; as those latter characters suit Denny's insect. 



Redtenbacher (Faun. Austr., ed. 2. p. 274), so far as he goep. 



