€34 Transactions South African Philosophical Society, [vol. xii. 



Anisonyx ursus, Fabr., 

 Syst. Entom. Append., p. 184. 



Black, with the antennae and anterior and intermediate legs testa- 

 ceous red ; clypeus very narrow and as long as the head, very little 

 acuminate laterally, deeply emarginate at apex, rugose ; head three 

 times as broad as the clypeus and clothed with very long and veiy 

 dense black hairs ; prothorax as densely clothed with black hairs as 

 the head, attenuate laterally in front, and having a median, not very 

 distinct longitudinal groove ; scutelluni sharply ogival, a little longer 

 than broad at the base, hairy ; elytra sub-parallel, plane, and having 

 on each side two rounded, not much raised costae the oiiter of which 

 is the prolongation of the humeral callus which is veiy developed and 

 shai-p, they are clothed with long, greyish and black hairs somewhat 

 seriate but not as dense as on the head and prothorax, and are bristly 

 along the suture, as often as not there are in the median parts two 

 naiTow longitudinal bands of somewhat opaline scales which do 

 not extend as far as the apex ; propygidium, pygidium, abdomen, 

 and pectus densely villose and without §cales ; hind tibiae clothed 

 with long and dense black hairs ; hind tarsi testaceous red ; anterior 

 tibiae with a very indistinct third basal outer tooth. 



This species is the harbinger of the spring in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Town. It is found in incredible quantities on the heaths or any 

 flower in bloom at the time. The larva makes no cocoon. The short 

 bands of opaline scales on the elytra are not a specific or a sexual 

 character, but so far as I know these bands are not present in 

 examples found outside the Cape District. 



Length 9^-11 mm. ; width 5-5^ mm. 



Hah. Cape Colony (Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Malmesbury, 

 Caledon). 



Anisonyx ignitus, Casteln., 



Plate XLIV., fig. 2. 

 Hist. Nat. d. Ins., ii., p. 157. 



Black, clothed along the sides of the head and on the prothorax 

 with long, dense black villose hairs, and having on the prothorax 

 two lateral bands of glowing, coppery red, minute scales often 

 coalescing ; the elytra, except an elongato-quadrate median patch 

 reaching from the base to past the middle, and the propygidium, 

 pygidium, and abdomen, are clothed with similar scales ; the antennie 

 and legs are black, and the basal outer tooth of the anterior tibiae is 

 as distinct as in J. ursus, but the clypeus, instead of being parallel, 

 is a little ampliated laterally in the middle, somewhat shaiply 



