INSECTA MADERENSIA. 311 



strvicture and habits, and therefore eminently calculated as it were to represent 

 the genus. It is found exclusively, so far as I have hitherto observed, either in 

 the stems of mountain plants or else beneath stones, in exposed grassy spots 

 (entirely free from timber) of rather low and intermediate altitudes. It is appa- 

 rently scarcer in Madeira proper than on the other islands, the only position in 

 which I have as yet taken it being the sunny slopes above the cliffs to the east- 

 ward of Funchal, towards the Cabo Gerajao or Brazen Head, — where during the 

 autumn of 184<7 I captm-ed it sparingly, from amongst short vegetation and 

 broken fragments of shrubs between the detached blocks of tufa and scoriae. In 

 December 181-8 I discovered the var. 7. in tolerable abundance in Porto Santo, 

 adhering to dried stalks and the under-sides of stones, on the ascent of nearly aU 

 the peaks : and on the 19th of March 1819 I met with specunens on the Ilheo de 

 Fora receding in no respect from the Madeiran ones. At the end of May 1850 I 

 took the var. (3. on the simimit of the Dezerta Grande, diu'ing my encampment 

 there with the Rev. R. T. Lowe : and a week later (namely, early in Jime) the 

 var. g. occurred in the utmost profusion on the Northern Dezerta, or lUieo Chao, 

 from whence I collected a large series of examples, all bearing the slight distinctive 

 features which I have endeavoured to indicate in the diagnosis of that variety. 

 They delight in the most ■«dndy positions ; nevertheless they would appear to 

 secrete themselves either beneath or immediately around the loose slabs of basalt, 

 or about the stems and roots of the harder, stunted plants, with which such 

 localities everywhere abound. 



236. Caulotrupis impius, Wdl. 



C. subcylindrico-ovatus piceo-niger subopacus, prothorace levitei- subpunctato, elytris subnitidis pro- 

 funde punctato-striatis, antennis longiusculis ferrugineis, pedibus piceis. 

 Variat (immaturus) colore omnino ferrugineo. 

 Long. Corp. lin. 1^-1|^. 



Habitat intra caules Silybi Mariani, Grtn. {=Cardui benedicti, antiquorum, — unde nomen triviale 

 proposui) in ins. Desertaj Grandis, Maio exeunte a.d. 1850 a meipso copiosissime captus : in 

 Madera propria mihi non obvius, at unicum exemplar indigenum, nisi me fallit, nuper com- 

 municavit Dom. Leacock. 



C. subcylindric-ovate, brownish- or piceous-black (when immature, more or less fen-uginous), and 

 sub-opake. Prothorax very indistinctly punctured, the punctures being exceedingly shallow and 

 ill-defined ; broadest a little behind the middle. Elytra rather more shining than the pro- 

 thorax, and with more or less of an obscure jeneous or greenish tinge ; deeply punctate-striated ; 

 subcylindi'ical, and broadest a little behind the middle. Antenna longish, and ferruginous. Legs 

 piceous. 



The small size of the present Ccmlotnqjis will readily separate it from every other 

 species here described except the C. terebr'ans, fi*om which however it is at once 



