398 INSECTA MADERENSIA. 



The immense genus Hypera {=l?hytonomns, Sclion. a.d. 1826) contains insects 

 which, both in their larva and perfect states, are eminently attached to the foliage 

 of the smaller plants, — being seldom foimd, like the Cyclomides, beneath stones ; 

 and never ia any way connected, like so many of the earlier groups, with the 

 larger vegetation and trees. In their rather narrow and subcylindi-ical rostra 

 they slightly recede from the normal members of this di\dsion of the Curcit- 

 lionidfs, in which the flatness and breadth of that portion of the body constitutes 

 one of the main distinctive featm*es; whilst in their more or less pubescent 

 surfaces, nearly unarmed tibia?, disengaged elytra and usually developed wings, 

 they seem to belong to a different type of form from those \^hich we have just left 

 heliind us. They are subject to great instability in the coloiu" and arrangement of 

 their scales ; and hence it is that varieties have been often described as species, 

 and true species lost sight of amongst varieties, antU the greatest confusion as 

 regards their synonymy has been the result. Of the three representatives which 

 have been hitherto detected in Madeira, two are abundant throughout Eiu-ope; 

 whilst the tliird, which is of a more truly indigenous uatui-e, would seem to be 

 peculiar to these islands. 



304. Hypera lunata, WoU. 



H. nigra, squamis fuscis et fusco-nigrescentibus densissime tecta, prothorace plus minusve distincte 

 trilineato, elytris fascieulis minutissimis nigrescentibus undique irroratis, fascia magna commuui 

 antemedia luniformi pallidiore ornatis, antennis pedibusque ferragineis et squamoso-variegatis. 



Long. Corp. lin. 3-3^. 



Habitat Maderam et Portum Sanctum, rarior : in ilM mihi non obvia, tamcn plurima specimina, in 

 horto quodam ad Sanctum Antonium capta, nuper communicavit Dom. Leacock ; sod in hoc 

 egomet obsenavi, qua mense Aprili a.d. 1848 in summo ipso monte Pico de Facho dicto exemplar 

 unieum e rupium fissura (inter licheues) collegi. 



H. large, black or piceous-black, most densely clothed with brown and blackish-brown scales, and 

 beset with a short, decumbent and rigid pubescence. Rostrum rather long. Prothorax with the 

 sides rounded, and rather widest just before the niiddk' ; generally with a distinct central line of 

 paler scales, and with indications of an ill-defined and curved one on either side. Ebjtra scarcely 

 wider behind the middle than at their base ; besprinkled with very minute, and more or less 

 evident fascicles of darker pile-like scales, and usually with foui- larger (triangular) ones (two on 

 either side of the scutellum) at their extreme base ; often with their entire (common) disk con- 

 siderably darker than the sides, — in which case, these larger basal and the remaining (minute) 

 fascicles are suffused (as regards colour) into the obscurer central portion ; but in «// instances 

 with a large luniform fascia of paler scales, common to both (arising from either shoulder, and 

 extending, in an unbroken arch, to nearly the centre of their disk), more or less apparent in 

 front. Antenna? and leys ferruginous; but the latter densely variegated with darker and paler 

 scales, and with their cluws very robust. 



A large and most elegant Hypera, somewhat calling to mind the H./asciculata 



