1902.] Catalogue of the Coleojytera of South Africa. 803 



at the tip the angles of which are obHquely attenuate and penicillate ; 

 upper maxillary lobe horny and with a long pencil of hairs at the top, 

 broad, concave, armed with six strong teeth set opposite each other, 

 apical joint of maxillary and labial palpi swollen at the base, fusiform ; 

 clypeus slightly attenuate laterally towards the apex, or rectangular, 

 straight at the tip, with the angles sometimes sharp or slightly 

 reflexed ; prothorax convex, narrowed laterally in the anterior part ; 

 scutellum short, triangular ; elytra elongate, somewhat plane, slightly 

 or strongly sinuate laterally below the humeral part, and attenuate 

 from there to the apex ; pygidium declivous forwards in the male ; 

 legs moderately slender, hind legs generally similar in both sexes, 

 with the exception of P. pugionatus, P. excentrus, P. clispar ; anterior 

 tibige hi- or tri-dentate outwardly ; all the claws double and cleft 

 (except in P. cicatrix), but the smaller one of the hind feet is 

 sometimes simple. 



By restricting to this genus all the species with the clypeus 

 transversely straight at apex, we have a very homogeneous group 

 of insects, the livery of which consists of hairs, not of scales ; in the 

 elytra, however, these appressed hairs are somewhat squamose 

 along the posterior part of the suture and on the apical margin. 



The habits are those of Heterochelus, and some species have a 

 facies which is not unlike that of certain species of the latter. P. sei)ii- 

 virgatus, &c., have the two basal outer teeth of the fore tibias nearly 

 connate, and therefore resembling those of Heterochelus; the tro- 

 chanters are developed into a long spine, and the hind tibiae into 

 a long mucro in P. pugionatus, or the hind tibiae are triangularly 

 dilated, and the apices sub-mucronate in the males of P. excentrus 

 or P. dispar. The maxillae are, however, much more robust and 

 more powerfully dentate inwardly in Platychclus, the apical outer 

 tooth of the anterior tibiae is always very oblique, and the hind legs 

 have always a long inner apical spur. 



I am not aware of the genus being represented elsewhere than in 

 South Africa. 



Key to the Species. 

 A.-. Hind trochanters produced into a long spiie in the male. 



Metallic, glittering, elytra light chsstnut-brown, under side and 



legs clothed with dense yellow hairs piKjwnatus. 



A'. Hind trochanters not spinose. 



B-. Elytra without deep longitudinal impressions or without 



costules. 



C=. Anterior tibice ti-deutate outwardly. 



