INSECTA MADERENSIA. 235 



be known from the other genera with which we are concerned by its extremely 

 hairy hodj and sub-abbreviated elytra, by its long and comparatively slender legs 

 and divided claws, and by its blossom-iafesting habits. None of its kindred forms, 

 so numerous in Mediterranean latitudes, existing in the present instance to con- 

 trast it with, there is but little fear of confoundiag it with any of the groups which 

 it is necessary here to notice : sufidce it therefore to remark, that its strong and 

 arcuated mandibles, the apically biuncinated outer, and the obsolete inner portion 

 of its maxiUa?, in conjunction Avith the largely divergent lobes of its ligula and the 

 singular construction of its fore-tibise (which are much produced at thek extre- 

 mity, and obliquely scooped-out within, — the basal joint of their tarsi being 

 received into the cavity at a considerable distance l)ehind the tip), wUl be amply 

 sufficient, apart from other characteristics readily apparent, to distinguish Chasma- 

 topterus from the remainder of the Coleoptera descril:)ed in this work. 



And w^e may here briefly advert to the extraordinary circiunstance, that the 

 immense department of the Thalerophagous Lamellicorns (or those which subsist 

 on living vegetable substances), so -widely diflPused throughout the world, shoiild be 

 represented in Madeira by, apparently, but a solitary species, — and even that one 

 of such extreme rarity that, during my constant researches in these islands, at 

 nearly aU seasons and extending over a period of about three years, not so mu.ch 

 as a single example should have occurred to me ; its sole admission into our fauna 

 resting on an isolated specimen captured by the late Dr. Heinecken, many years 

 ago, near Eimehal. Wlien we consider the vast importance of the Thalerophagous, 

 or Melitophilous, section of the Cordylocerata in promoting the fecundation of 

 plants (the hau-iness of the numerous creatm-es which compose it, in connection 

 with their almost exclusive attachment to flowers, constituting them especial media 

 in the distribution of poUen), it does certainly seem imaccountable that, in islands 

 where sunshine is the ruling power and where the flora is literally redundant, so 

 gross an oversight in the economy of Nature should present itself. In the 

 Saprophagous division (or those which feed on decomposed vegetable matter, as, for 

 instance, the Aphodiada:), our species, on the contrary, attain a very fail- average 

 in point of number, — especially when the natui-e of the country and the smaUness 

 of the island cluster is taken into account ; and we are naturally therefore led to 

 inquire why it is that the Thalerophagous type is so sparingly indicated. To a 

 certain extent, the large preponderance of Hymenopterous and Dipterous insects 

 may compensate for the deficiency, and enable us to arrive at a partial solution of 

 an enigma otherwise difiiciilt ; — since it is more than probable that the dispersion 

 of the pollen is abundantly effected (so far at least as it is dependent on insect 

 agency at all) by the extra amount of individuals which those enormous Orders are 

 here made to embrace. StUl, be the explanation what it may, the fact must ever 

 remain strange, that so significant a portion of the Coleoptera, and one which is 

 scarcely less universal than profuse, should be but thus faintly expressed amongst 

 " upwards of a thousand members of a subau.stral fauna. 



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