AGESTKATA. 



193 



Agestrata chinensis, G. Sf P., Monocjr. Cet. 1833, p, 305, pi. 59, 

 fig. 2 ; Bunn., Handb. Ent. iii, 1842, p. 309. 



{Var. Cetonia nigrita, Fah., Syst. Eyit. 1775, p. 43. 

 Agestrata gagates, Hope, Proc. Ent. Soc. 1841, p. 33. 

 Agestrata withilli, Hope, I. c. 



Var. Agestrata samsou, Sharp, Ent. Moii. Mar/, xi, 1874, p. 35 

 (n. syn.). 



Metallic blue, green, purplish or black, with the coxae, femora, 

 mesosternal epimera, pygidium and sides of the sternum and 

 abdomen orange-red, and sometimes an inconspicuous narrow 

 patch of the same colour at the lateral edge of the prothorax. 



The body is very long and narrow and rather flat. The chjpeus 

 is narrow and rather straight-sided, lightly punctured, but rather 

 more strongly in front. The p^'onotum is very finely coriaceous, 

 with minute punctures which are most distinct at the sides. The 

 lateral margins are finely raised, the posterior angles well marked 

 but rounded, and the basal lobe rather pointed but not long. The 

 eh/tra are very long, smooth, scarcely perceptibly punctured, 

 except at the sides, and rather rugose at the extremity. The 

 outer margins are ratlier feebly sinuated behind the shoulders, the 

 inner margins (at least at the posterior half) strongly raised, and 

 the apical margins a little excised beside the apical angle, which, 

 is produced. T\\e pyuidium is very short, broad and transversely 

 carinated, with its surface strigose. The lower surface of the 

 body is very smooth, but the sides of .the metasternum are very 

 finely and densely punctured. 



The club of the antenna is longer than the footstalk in both 

 sexes and considerably longer in the male, although varying greatly. 

 In the latter sex the sides of the pronotum are more divergent 

 behind, the last abdominal segment is deeply emargiuate in the 

 middle and the ventral part of the pygidium correspondingly 

 lobed. 



Length 36-46 mm.; breadth 15-22 mm. 



Ceylok; Madras: Travancore; Bombay; Assam: Silhet ; 

 Tekasserim ; Andaman Is. ; Malay Peninsula ; Sumatra ; 

 Borneo ; China ; etc. 



Type not traced ; type of clilnensis in the British Museum, 

 those of gagates and withilli in the Oxford Museum ; the type of 

 nigrita was originally in the British Museum, but cannot now be 

 found; that of samson in coll. Oberthiir. 



This common insect is remarkably inconstant in size, colour, 

 sculpture, etc., and tends to produce local races. The var. samson 

 is a large form with the marginal line of the pronotum incomplete, 

 the clypeus as broad as it is long, with the sides gently curved, 

 and the pygidium smooth in the middle. It is doubtful if these 

 features are more than individual aberrations. 



The beetle is commonly found in the neighbourhood of Screw- 

 pines {Pandanus) and Mr. H. N. Eidley tells me he has never 

 seen them elsewhere than upon or flying round these. He has 

 found them very destructive to ornamental Fandanus shrubs 



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