218 INSECTA MADERENSIA. 



S. squarish-oblong, varj'ing from feneous into acneous-black, and often with a bluish or cyaneous 

 tinge ; less shining than cither of the previous species. Head unpunctured ; but with the 

 forehead strongly margined both at the sides and in front, and transversely wrinkled and pitted 

 anteriorly. Protlwrax, likewise, more distinctly margined than in either of the preceding species ; 

 with the anterior angles (which have no indication of a depression within them) porrected (though 

 rounded), and the front cmargination comparatively deep ; verj' lightly roughened towards the 

 sides with exceedingly faint and somewhat contlueut punctures (which causes the sculpture to be 

 slightly strigulose), but with very deep ones along the hinder margin. Elytra with their extreme 

 apex more or less picescent, or ferruginous ; with their posterior region (distinctly exceeding the 

 half of the entire surface) very closely and dcejily punctured ; and with five deeply-impressed 

 punctate and oblique strise do\vn the outer disk of each, extending but slightly behind the 

 middle (of which the third is rather the longest, the outer, or marginal one obscure, angulated 

 and broken, and the inner one incurved to within a short distance of the scutellum, where it 

 joins), a straight, deep and entire one close alongside the suture, — the space between the third 

 and fifth stritc being usually more free from punctures and wrinkles than in either of the other 

 species. Abdomen closely and rather coarsely punctured. Antenna and legs dark piceous ; the 

 former with their club fuscous ; and the latter with their anterior tibiae armed externally with five 

 powerful teeth. 



An abundant insect throughout the whole of Europe and in the north of Afi'ica. 

 It may be easily recognized from the previous two by its more oblong form, by its 

 deeply pitted and strongly margined (though unpunctm-ed) forehead, by the more 

 porrected anterior angles of its (laterally substrigulosc) prothorax (which do 7iot 

 enclose a depression, as in the other sjiecies, Avithin them), by the pimctm-ed 

 portion of its elytra rather exceeding the half of their entire sui'face, and by the 

 front tibia? being each armed with five powerful and well-defined teeth*. I have 

 taken it abundantly on the sea-shore of Porto Santo, but have not hitherto 

 observed it in any of the other islands of the group. 



Fam. 20. THORICTID^. 



Genus 77. THORICTUS. (Tab. IV. fig. G.) 



Germar, in Silb. liev. Ent. ii. 2. 15 (1834). 



Corpus parvum, obtusum, dm-um, politissimum : prothorace amplissimo : mesothorace brevissimo, 

 scutello min>itissimo (segre observando) : elijtris subeonnatis ad apicem rotundatis integris : alts 

 obsolctis. AntenruB (IV. 6 a) brevissimre (caj)ite vix longiores) crassK capitata?, ad marginem 

 capitis repositse, articulis prime et secundo (illo prsecipue) robustis, tertio ad octavum breubus 



* The present Saprinus diflers from the S. metallicus of the Entomohgische Hefte, of Gyllenlial, and 

 of Paykull's Monograph (wluch, aecordiiig to Erichson, is the II. rugifrons of PaykuU's Fauna Suecica) 

 in being a little smaller, and in having only five teeth, mstead of six, to its front tibia\ The insect which 

 has usually stood in British collections imder the name of S. metallicus is (accepting Erichson's state- 

 ment) the true rugifrons. But I think it for from improbable however that the two may be in reality but 

 states of the same species, — in the same manner as we have two distinct modifications of the S. niiidulus. 



