INSECTA MADERENSIA. 237 



subquadrata, apice truncata. Pedes graciles contractiles : tihiis sublineari-compressis : Uasis 

 filifonuibus gracilibus in foveis tibiarum receptis, articulo primo elongate, quarto leviter bifido. 



The little genus Trixagns {=Throscus, Lat., Gen. Crust, et Ins. ii. 36, a.d. 1807) 

 is so doubtful in its affinities, that entomologists are still at variance as to its 

 correct location ; some placing it near to, or mth the J3i/rrhid(B, some with the Der- 

 mestidce, others amongst the aberrant Eucnemidce, whilst by Linuseus and Latreille 

 the ElateridcB were selected to receive it. In real fact however it partakes in certain 

 respects of the essential characters of all ; so that it becomes a matter of no very 

 great importance to which of them we choose to consider it as the most nearly 

 allied, — and, esj)ecially, since it cannot be actually admitted into any of the above 

 divisions, but must constitute a separate family in the immediate vicinity of one or 

 the other of them. In M. Gaubil's recently published Catalogue of the European 

 Coleoptera it is associated with Myrmecobiiis and TJiorictus, and made to perform 

 the passage from the Bijrrhidce into the Sistri : but, although it is imquestionably 

 desu-able that it should be regarded as the type of an isolated group, I am by no 

 means convinced that it possesses anything in common with the latter, — whUst 

 with Thorictus it does not appear to me to have even the most distant connection. 

 To the ByrrhklcB it is manifestly akin in many particulars of its structure (its 

 clavated antennae, for instance, — which are received diu-ing repose into grooves of 

 its miteriorly jyrodiiced prosternum, — and ia the contractility of its legs) ; and it is 

 impossible to deny that it approaches very evidently towards the ElateridcB like- 

 wise (as its general contour, and the extremely acuminated hinder angles of its 

 prothorax obviously indicate) : so that it is, in all probability, between those two 

 families that it forms a connecting link, — and it is shnply therefore a question of 

 degree to which of them it is the more closely related. For my own part, I am 

 inclined to accept the position assigned to it by Mr. Westwood, in his aditiirable 

 Introduction to the lloderii Classification of Insects, as by far the most natural 

 one, — believing, with him, that " the least important of its characters as family 

 characteristics are those which separate it from the Elateridce." The Trixagi are 

 Em'opean insects, and exceedingly few in species, — three only having been hitherto 

 described. They occur normally in fimgi; though in reality they are more 

 frequently to he found, in an active state, amongst dense herbage, or on the flowers 

 and foliage of plants, in shady spots beneath trees. 



185. Trixagus gracilis, Woll. 



T. ellipticus rufo-brunneus dense cinereo-pubescens, protliorace punctulato angulis posticis valde acuto- 

 productis necnon ad basin lobato, elytris leviter subpunctato-striatis, interstitiis distincte punc- 

 tulatis, anteunis ferragineis, pedibus testaceis. 



Long. Corp. lin. ]^. 



Habitat Maderam australem,— in horto Loweano ad Levada, inter lichenes una cum Ephistemo dinii- 

 diato degens, a meipso repertus. 



