INSECTA MADERENSIA. 263 



§ II. Corpus plus minusve sphcericum squamosum apterum, prothorace convexo, scutello vix ohservando : 

 antennm ad apicem plus minusve subclavatce : tarsi hreviusculi subacuminati, articuUs quatuor haseos 

 longitudine suhceqwalibus. (Ptiiii aberrantes, sed in insults Maderensibm typici.) 



(Subgenus SPH^EICUS, Mots, in litt.) 

 200. Ptinus Dawsoni, Woll. (Tab. V. fig. 5.) 

 P. piceus squamis fulvescenti-cinereis adspersus, elytris rotundato-ovatis profunde seriato-punctatis 

 (punctis maximis), fasciis duabus (una sc. ad basin ipsam posita et postice valde iniequaliter 

 lacero-indentata, sed altera longe ultra medium sita) per sutm-am late interruptis albidis ornatis, 

 antennis pedibusque robustissimis ferrugineis et dense squamosis. 

 Long. Corp. lin. 1^. 



Habitat in ins. Deserta Grandi, sub lapide JVIaio exeunte a.d. 1850 a meipso repertus. 

 In honorem el. Ricardi Dawson, M.D., Londini, ob gratias mihi per plures annos amice oblatas caris- 

 simi, hoc insectum pulchritudine superbiens et valde distinctum citavi. 



P. piceous or brownish-piceous, and more or less besprinkled with yellowish-cinereous scales. Pro- 

 thorax convex, rounded at the sides, — and therefore narrowed (although not constricted) both 

 before and behind. Elytra roundish-ovate (being widest a little behind the base) ; less densely 

 clothed with scales than the prothorax; very deeply seriate- (but not striate-) punctate (the 

 punctures being exceedingly large and distinct) ; and with two transverse fascise (one of which is 

 placed at their extreme base, — and is exceedingly ragged, and unequally produced backwards, 

 posteriorly ; whilst the other is straighter, and situated midway between their apex and the centre 

 of their disk), which are widely interrupted in the middle, white. Antennce and legs extremely 

 robust, ferruginous, and densely clothed with yellowish-cinereous scales ; the former nearly fili- 

 form, with their apical joint thick and ovate; the latter with their tarsi short and broad, — 

 though (as in most of the other members of the present section) rather acuminated. 



A most elegant and weU-defined Ftinus ; and one which is hitherto unique, — 

 the only specimen which has been detected, so far at least as I am aware, having 

 been captured l)y myself, from beneath a stone, on the lofty weather-beaten ridge 

 which constitutes the northern extremity of the Dezerta Grande, during my 

 encampment there with the Rev. R. T. Lowe, at the end of May 1850. As already 

 stated, the whole of the members of the present division of the genus may be 

 recognised from those of the preceding one by their more spherical, scaly (but 

 unpubescent) and apterous bodies, by their ahnost obsolete scutella, by their 

 convex (though not posteriorly constricted) prothoraces, and by then- antennae and 

 legs being more abbreviated and robust, — the former of which moreover have 

 their apical joint universally (and occasionally the subapical ones likewise) incras- 

 sated ; whilst the latter are remarkable for their shorter and subacmrdnated feet, 

 the basal articulation of which (especially in the two anterior pair) is scarcely 

 longer than any of the following tliree, whilst the terminal one is unusually 

 minute. Apart from which characters (which are sectional and not specific), the 

 P. Dawsoni may be at once distingxushed by its excessively thickened limbs, and 



