INSECTA MADERENSIA. 35 



would seem to play a rather important part amongst the Carahidce of these islands, 

 the whole three species being, apparently, not only peculiar to Madeira, hut two 

 out of them being so excessively abundant A\dthin their restricted limits, as, in all 

 probability, to answer some especial purpose in the insect economy of those remote 

 regions. They reside beneath stones and the bark of trees, principally at a lofty 

 elevation, making their appearance in the autumn and lasting until the end of the 

 following spring. 



35. OUsthopus Maderensis, WoU. (Tab. I. fig. 7.) 



O. ovatus subconvexiis uigro- vel aeneo-fuscus, prothorace rotundato, elytris striatis, singulo punctis 



tribus impresso, interstitiis obsoletissime granulatis, margine et sutura plus minusve nifo-flaves- 



centibus, antennis pedibusque pallido-testaceis. 

 Var. (3. major rufo-fuscus opacus, prothoracis lateribus, elytrorumqiie margine et suturS, late flaves- 



centibus, singulo punctis tribus obsoletissime impresso, interstitiis distincte granidatis. (Ins. 



Deserta Grandis.) 

 Long. Corp. lin. 3-3g^. 



Habitat sub lapidibus in montibus Maderse, a 2000' s. m. usque ad cacumina ascendens, tempore 

 hiberno et vernali, copiosissimus : var. /3. sola in Deserta Grandi, et tantum illic, nisi fallor, 

 occurrit, qua mense Januario a.d. 1849 plurima specimina in summa insula detexi. 



O. ovate, very shining, a little convex, usually dark brassy-brown, or else brassy-black. Head and 

 prothorax darker than the rest of the surface ; the former elongated ; the latter rather large, wide 

 in front, and much rounded posteriorly, rugosely punctured at the sides and behind, and with a 

 channel Aovra. the disk ; the extreme margin very obscurely paler. Elytra finely striated, the 

 interstices, under a high magnifying power, being most minutely granuled ; with three more or 

 less distinct impressions down the disk of each near to the third stria from the suture ; the margins, 

 especially about the shoulders, distinctly, and the sutui'c more or less obscurely fuscescent. Legs, 

 antenna and palpi pale testaceous. 

 Var. /3. larger and opake ; reddish-brown, the margins of the prothorax and elytra, and the suture 

 of the latter, broadly and distinctly pale : the prothorax scarcely at all punctured behind : the 

 interstices of the elijtra very distinctly granuled, and tlie three impressed points on the third stria 

 of each from the suture almost obsolete. (The state peculiar to the Deserta Grande.) 



I had for a long time considered the present Olisthopns to be identical with the 

 O. glahratus, of Brull^, from the Canary Islands, of which indeed I still think it 

 not impossible that it may turn out eventually to be a local state. Nevertheless, 

 not having been able to procure specimens for comparison, and since the present 

 species by no means answers to the short and unsatisfactory description given by 

 Brulle in the Sistoire Ncdurelle cles lies Canaries of Webb and Berthelot, I am 

 induced to retain it as separate, until at any rate fiu-ther e\ddence shall decide the 

 point. In the absence in fact of actual examples to judge from, it is impossible 

 to reconcile the Madeiran insect with the diagnosis, as there enimciated, of the 



f2 



