216 INSECTA MADERENSIA. 



a little more rufescent and their club infuscate ; and the latter with their anterior tibise spinulose 

 externally, — the number of the spines being usually about twelve. 

 Var. /3. smaller, and rather rounder in outhne; and with the anterior tibiae more minutely spinulose 

 along their outer edge. 



The S. nitidulus may be at once known from the two folloAving species by its much 

 larger, somewhat more ovate (or acumiuated) body, by the anteriorly-obsolete 

 sutural striae of its elji;ra (the punctured portion of which is concave in front), and 

 by the number of its fore-tibial spines being usually about twelve. It is an 

 abundant insect thi-oughout Europe and in the north of Africa, and it is recorded 

 l)y Weljl) and Berthelot in the Canary Islands. I have not myself succeeded in 

 detecting it in Madeu'a ; but I possess five specimens, given to me by the Rev. 

 R. T. Lowe, from the collection of the late Dr. Heinecken, by whom they were 

 taken near Funchal. Three of these {var. /3.) are considerably smaller than the 

 remaining two ; and from a label still attached to them, appear to have occurred 

 in his garden at the Valle. A single recent individual only has come beneath my 

 notice, — captured by M. Roussct, in company -with Faromahts imm'dio, amongst 

 rejectamenta, in the immediate vicinity of the sewers and di-ains, on the beach of 

 Funchal. 



170. Saprinus chalcites. 



S. subrotundato-quadratus seneus nitidissimus, capite crebre et subtiliter punctulato, prothorace 

 versus latera Icviter, sed per margincm posticum profunde punctato, elytro singulo striis quinque 

 dimidiatis obliquis (externa angulata fracta) et una suturali recta intcgra impresso, parte postica 

 dimidia, punctata, antennis pedibusque rufo-piceis, tibiis anticis spinuloso-subdentatis. 



Long. Corp. lin. \\-2. 



Mister chalcites, lUig. Mag. fur Ins. vi. 40 (1807). 



rufipes, Gyll. Ins. Suec. i. 90 (1808). 



njinis, Payk. Hon. Hist. 76. tab. vii. fig. 2 (1811). 



Sa2)rinus chalcites, Erich, in Khig Jahrh. i. 182 (1834). 

 , Lucas, Col de VAlgerie, 229 (1849). 



Habitat in marcidis insidarum ]\Liderensium, rarior : in Porta Sancto duo specimina (una cum 

 Sf. metallico dcgcns), necnon unicum etiam in Dcserta Grandi (Maio cxcunte a.d. 1850) collcgi : 

 in Madera propria mihi non obviu.«, sed exemplar possideo a Bom. Heinecken prope urbem Fun- 

 chalenscm nisi fallor olim rcpertum. 



S. roundi.sh-quadrate, peneous (more or less bright, and occasionally with even a slightlv ])iceous 

 tinge), and exceedingly highly polished. Head \evy closely and finely punctured; and with the 

 forehead most narrowly margined at the sides (the margin being totally evanescent in the extreme 

 centre in front). Prothorax, likewise, narrowly margined; with the anterior angles (which have 

 a rounded shallow depression at a considerable distance within each) broad and somewhat ob- 

 liquely truncated, and the front cmargination shallow ; with small and very lightly impressed 

 punctures towards the sides, and deeper ones along the hinder margin. Elytra witli their 

 extreme ape.x picescent, or ferruginous ; with their posterior region (scarcely equalling a half of 



