INSECTA MADERENSIA. 179 



mandibles are bidentate at their extremity, wliUst the body is apterous, extremely 

 smooth, and highly polished, — in all of which it is positively identical with Cholo- 

 vocera. Again, in Corticaria and Luthridhts the feet are, likewise, trimerous; 

 and, although the antennaj are 11-jointed, the inner lobe of the maxillae is wholly 

 obsolete. Then, in Monotonia we also find a reduction in the antennal and tarsal 

 joints (the former being curtailed to ten, and the latter to four), the inner maxillary 

 lobe is absent, and the club of the antennae, though not securiform, is compre- 

 hended in a single articulation. Whilst in the little genus Metophthalnms the 

 number of the joints of the antennae is diminished, in like manner, to ten, the 

 feet are triarticulated, the inner lobe of the maxillae is evanescent, the body is 

 apterous, and the eyes are constructed, as regards the paucity and magnitude of 

 the facets which compose them, on precisely the same anomalous type as those of 

 Cholovocera. 



Thus, we perceive that the genera of the Lathridiadce contain cdl the elements 

 (and more or less in conuexion) for which Cholovocera is especially remarkable ; 

 and there can, consequently, be but little doubt, I imagine, that its proper 

 situation is there. And, if we look even to external contour and habits, we shall 

 find that this affinity is not the less indicated, since so many of the adjoining 

 groups (as Monotonia, Langellandla, Myrmeconomus, and Iletoplitlialmus) are 

 notorious either for their subterraneous or Ant-associating propensities, or else, 

 like Soloparamecus, for then- minute bulk and glabrous surfaces. The largely- 

 developed, securiform, one-articulated clava of Cholovocera cannot be regarded as 

 of more than generic signiiication ; and it is therefore by no means necessary that 

 we should expect to find even the rudiments of a similar organization amongst its 

 immediate allies : nevertheless we may perhaps detect some slight expression of it 

 in the ohliquelij-truncated last joint of the antennae of Koloparamecus, and in the 

 uni-articnlated club of Monotonia. Upon the whole, however, I am inclined to 

 suspect that it has a more intimate relation with Koloparamecus than with 

 anything else hitherto described : and, although the Madeiran representative may 

 seem, at first sight, in its rounded outline to recede very considerably from the 

 normal members of the Lathridiadce ; yet the only two other species known 

 (namely the C. formicarla, Mots., from Georgia, and the C. 2>i'nctaf a, Mnvkel, from 

 Sicily,— typical specimens of both of which I have been enabled, through the 

 kindness of Mr. Westwood, to examine, but which seem to be so nearly akin that 

 it is not easy to assert in what they differ) approach them, in this respect, far more 

 closely, — since in their narrower, and less convex bodies, and in then* basally-sub- 

 constricted elytra they do in fact bear a very strong j)rimd facie resemblance to at 

 any rate the Soloparameci (with wliich it has been akeady shown that in many of 

 the most essential of their structural peculiarities they are actually coincident). 



This remarkable genus was first described by Motschulsky, from specimens 



discovered beneath stones (in the vicinity of Ants' nests) at Derbent, not far from 



the Caspian Sea. 



2 a2 



