484 INSECTA MADERENSIA. 



ultimate joint greatly truncated, or foreshortened, at the tip), will be at once 

 sufficient, apart from obscurer features, to separate it from its nearest allies. 



Regarding the affinities of the Anisotomldce great diversity of opinion may be 

 said stUl to exist, — some authors following Latreille and the older naturalists (as 

 I have preferred doing in the present instance), and so passing, by means of it, 

 from the Pseudotrimera into the Heteromerous Diaperldcs ; whilst others station 

 it amongst the Necrophaga, in the neighbourhood of the SUphidce, which in many 

 respects w^ould certainly seem to be its most reasonable position. Still, it appears 

 to me to be impossible to se2)arate it from the CorylopjJiida; (the connective links 

 having been already pointed out and discussed) ; and hence it would become 

 necessary, I imagine, to remove that family also, if we consider the Necvopliaga 

 to be alone capable of receiving it, — a step which the subscribers to the latter 

 view have not generally adopted. And if therefore, as I apprehend to be the case, 

 the AnisotomidcB and CorylophidcB cannot in a natiu'al system be placed far asunder, 

 the question simply becomes whether it is more important to retain the former 

 amongst the Necrophaga than the latter in the vicinitg of the Coccinellldce. With- 

 out attempting the solution of tliis difficult jiroblcm, I have chosen here the 

 second of these arrangements, since the quacbiarticulate feet of the Corylophidce, 

 in conjunction mth the other details of theu* structiu'e, are almost luiiversally 

 admitted to point to the Pseudotrimera as then- most plausible location; whilst 

 the numerical instability in the tarsal jomts of the Anisotomldce, in which the 

 majorifij of the species are heteromerous, w^ould equally tend to constitute them a 

 not impracticable passage into the Atrachelia, — making that division to com- 

 mence with the Diaperidce. Nor should we forget that so completely is variable- 

 ness the very essence of a transition group, that, when we find great mutability to 

 exist in any series of characters, we are even a priori led to suspect that the 

 assemblage in which it occurs is in all probability connective between some two 

 others ; and, if moreover there should chance to be a liability on the part of the 

 insects which it includes to assvime a particular state w^hich attains its maximum 

 in a recognised department, we are further induced to believe that it is into that 

 section which one of its extremes must conduct us ; — a case which is exactly 

 realized in the great numerical inconstancy and the heteromerous tendency of the 

 feet of the Anisotomida;. 



369. Stag-ouomoi-pha sphserula, vvoll (Tab. X. fig. 8.) 

 S. orbiculato-ovata uigra glaberrima et fere impunctata, capite prothoraceque rufo-testaceis, autenuis 



pedibusque diluto-testaceis. 

 Long. coq). lin. \. 



Habitat Maderam borcalein sylvaticam, rarissime, a iiieipso ad Lombo dos Pecegueiros d. 23 Jul. 

 A.D. 1850 capta. 



