INSECTA MADERENSIA. 31 



on a single one, when they are not viewed in the mass, and where only a few 

 examples, received from a distant country and without any local data to reason 

 from, constitute the whole of our knowledge concerning them. I have not of 

 course attempted, in the ahove diagnosis, to indicate all the varieties of this pro- 

 tean species, for they are so numerous that such would be impossible ; but I have 

 endeavoured to alight vipon those more prominent forms which are characteristic 

 of the islands and altitudes in which they severally obtain. Nevertheless they 

 must be regarded only as resting-points on the way, since the intermediate linlvs, 

 and even occasionally perhaps monstrosities at either extremity, can be supplied 

 without difficulty by observation on the spot. It will be perceived that those 

 specimens which have been isolated on the Dezerta Grande have, as usual, attained 

 a somewhat larger size than those on the other islands ; whereas the Porto Santan 

 representatives, in addition to the flatter surface which they have assumed, have 

 slightly diminished in stature : whilst in the less uniform island of Madeira, where 

 alone we have sufficient altitude to influence them, we observe a range of structm'e 

 proportionably large, — in length, breadth, colour and sculpture, according to the 

 cii'cumstances of the respective districts. 



22. Calathus fuscus. 



C. sub-alatus piceus, prothorace quadrato antice leviter angustato lateribus ferrugineis, elytris sub- 



parallelis siibtiliter striatis, singulo punctis duobus impresso, antennis pedibiisque testaceis. 



Long. Corp. lin. 5. 



Gar abus fuscus, Fab. Ent. Syst. i. 158 (1792). 



■ amhiguus, Payk. Fna Suec. i. 165 (1798). 



Harpalus fuscus, Gyll. Ins. Suec. ii. 126 (1810). 

 Calathus fuscus, Dej. Spec, ties Col. iii. 71 (1828). 



Habitat sub lapidibus in montibus superioribus Maderse, inde a 3500' s. m., copiosissime. 



C. apterous, or with the wings very rudimentary ; piceous, the males exceedingly shining, the females 

 rather more opake. Head and prothurax much polished ; the latter quadrate, wide behind and a 

 little narrowed in front, with the sides scarcely at all reflesed, though brightly ferruginous ; lon- 

 gitudinally but not deeply channelled in the centre, and with a very shallow impunctate fovea on 

 either side at the base. Elytra nearly parallel, slightly broader in the middle than at the base, 

 finely striated, and each with two imjjrcssions on the disk, the anterior one being near the third 

 stria, and the posterior one near the second, from the suture. Legs, antennce and palpi 

 testaceous. 



A conxmon European insect, at once distinguished from the two preceding species 

 by its comparatively parallel form, wide prothorax, glossy sm"face, by its shorter 

 legs and antennge, and by its more finely striated elytra, which have only two 

 punctures, and those often very indistinct, upon the disk of each. It occurs 

 abundantly beneath stones in the mountains of Madeira, though only at liigh 

 altitudes, making its appearance at about 3000 feet above the sea, and ascending 



