200 [February, 



of movement, early in the autumn ; that they remained buried and 

 quiescent till about the middle of the following May ; and that the pupal 

 change occupied about four weeks from the time of the first noted 

 externa] change, to the development into active existence of the first 

 imago hatched from them. The long deferred period of pupation 

 explains its own special end, in producing the first Volucellcc of the 

 season exactly at the period when the bees'-nests, in which they arc 

 parasitical, are first ready to receive them. 



ON NEW COLEOPTERA FKOM JAPAN. 



BY T. VEENON WOLLASTON, M.A., F.L.S. 



{concluded from page 172). 



Fam. LATEIDIAD^. 

 Genus HOLOPAEAMECUS, Curtis, in Ent. Mag., i, 186 (1833). 

 Amongst the Coleoptera which were collected by Mr. Lewis in 

 Japan, there are five species of Soloparamecus ; and, as four of them 

 appear to me to have been hitherto undescribed (the fifth one being 

 the widely distributed H. Kunzcei, Aub6), I propose to give diagnoses 

 of these latter. I should add, however, that one (out of the four), 

 namely, the H. capitatus, founded upon a single example (of great 

 structural peculiarity), may possibly prove to be but the male sex of 

 the preceding species (the S. signattis); though, as I have no means 

 of ascertaining this for certain, it is scarcely possible to act on that 

 hypothesis, and I must needs leave the question to be solved by 

 future evidence. Considering how few 'H.oloparameci have as yet 

 been defined, it is remarkable that bo many as four additional ones 

 (assuming the H. capitatus and sirjnatus to be distinct from each other) 

 should have been met with by Mr. Lewis ; and in order, therefore, 

 to render the geographical distribution of the nine members of the 

 group with which I am acquainted, and their sequence inter se, 

 intelligible, it may perhaps be worth while to enumerate them afi'esh. 

 And, when we bear in mind that the first and second representatives 

 of Section I, namely, the S. Kunzcei and singularis, possess two sets 

 of individuals (in all probability males and females) in which the 

 antennal joints are respectively nine and ten, there is every reason 

 to believe that the S. elJipticus and signat^is (the examjjles of which 

 now before me have 9-articulated autenu?e) will be found eventually 

 to be in the same predicament, and likewise that the H. capitatus 

 (the unique exponent of which has its antennse composed of ten 

 joints) will display a form in which the antennae are also 9-jointed. 



