INSECTA MADERENSIA. 433 



theless it exists in them both, — conjointly with the other structural characters 

 above enumerated. 



from the Salvages will not be here out of place,— and especially so since it is scarcely less remarkable in 

 outward contour, or interesting in local importance, than its Dezertan analogue. 



Deucalion oceanicus, JVoll. 

 D. oblongo-ovatus crassua subdepressus niger subopacus et dense lurido-pubescens, prothorace inaequali 



ad latera spina media instruoto, in disco postico fovea rotundata plus miuusve profunda impresso, 

 elytris substriatis, iuterstitiis crebre varioloso-tubercidatis, autemiis minus elongatis apicem versus 

 fuscis. 

 Long. Corp. lin. 5-9. 



Habitat in insvdis remotis " Salvages" dietis, a Dom. Leacock sub lapidibus detectus. 



D. broader and thicker than the B. Besertarum, also rather more depressed, dull black, nearly opake, 

 and densely clothed vrith short decumbent lurid (or dirty yellow) hairs. Antennce considerably 

 shorter tlaan the body ; piceous at their base, but fuscous towards their apex. Head large and 

 rough ; with an impressed central line, and a small, narrow and rather shallow fovea on the top of 

 the forehead behind the eyes. Pro^/wrao: vrider and shorter than in the B. Besertarum ; uneven and 

 wrinkled, and with the sides produced into an obtuse postmedial spine ; the hinder margin not quite 

 so straight as in the B. Besertarum (liavong an obscure tendency to be waved) ; broadly constricted 

 (though much less distinctly so than in the Dezertan insect) posteriorly, the constricted portion 

 being transversely-plicate ; and impressed on its hinder disk (just in front of the coarctate belt) 

 with a small, rounded and more or less shallow fovea. Elytra obscurely striated ; the interstices 

 thickly beset with shallow variolose pits or impressions, the anterior edge of each of which is raised 

 into a very large, distinct, obtuse, and somewhat overhanging tubercle, — the tubercles being free 

 from pubescence, and (as in the B. Besertarum) more numerous and elevated towards the humeral 

 angles and base (nevertheless altogether larger and denser than in that species). Legs slightly 

 piceous, but thickly beset, like the rest of the surface, with dirty -yellowish pile. 



A most beautiful and well-marked Beucalion ; and readily known from the B. Besertarum by its extra- 

 ordinary LQstabiLity of stature, by its broader, thicker, more depressed, and densely pubescent body, by 

 its shorter prothorax and antennae (the former of which is not quite so imeven as in that species, and has 

 both the hinder central fovea and the coarctate band less defined), and by the larger, more nimierous, 

 and obtuser tubercles of its perceptibly striated elytra. The shaUo^vness of its elytral impressions indeed, 

 in conjunction with the much greater development of the prominences, might have caused it to have 

 been described as simply tuberculose, did not the B. Besertarum fortunately exist to explain their forma- 

 tion, — which, it win be seen on inspection, is the same as in that insect. For, whilst the varioles of the 

 B. Besertarum are exceedingly distinct and the tubercles small (the latter seeming to be principally 

 generated by the oblique upheaval of the anterior edge of the former, — as though the result of the indi- 

 rectness of the force which, impinging against the surface, had dug out the depressions) ; in tlie B. ocea- 

 nicus the law is somewhat reversed, — the elevations being considerably developed, and the pits almost 

 obsolete. The specimens from which the above description has been compiled were detected (as already 

 mentioned) in the Salvages by T. S. Leacock, Esq. of Funchal, — whose researches on those remote rocks, 

 in 1851, have brought to Uglit many interesting facts bearing on their geographical relation to the one 

 great system of which all these Atlantic groups are but detached portions. The insect under consider- 

 ation came from the smaller of the two islands (known nevertheless as the "Great Piton"), — which 

 Ml'. Leacock describes as a very singular spot ; beiug a cone of rock projecting out of a sandy base, and 

 covered with a profusion of plants. Out of the six members of the Coleoptera which he collected, aU are 

 specifically new ; yet, at the same time, so intimately allied to both the Madeiran and Canarian types as 

 to constitute a stepping-stone as it were between the two. 



3 K 



