544 INSECTA MADEREN'SIA. 



parallel ligiila (which is most minutely, and straightly, bifid at its extreme 

 apex only), their greatly abbre-vdated elytra*, and their comparatively depressed 

 and more or less posteriorly-expanded form, will serve additionally to separate 

 them. Their habits are, to a certain extent, in keeping with their anomalous 

 structure, — the species being attached, unless I am much mistaken, to Ants' nests 

 (in the immediate vicinity of which, at any rate, the few specimens which I have 

 hitherto succeeded in detecting have always occurred), 



§ I. Scutellum seutiforme : pedes crassi, tarsorum anticorwm articuUs omnibus disiinctis. 



412. Xenomma planifrons, WuU. (Tab. XIII. fig. 4.) 

 X. rufo-feiTugineum opacuui, capite magno valde deplanato et crebre punctulato, prothorace profuudc 

 canaliculato antice lato, abdomine basi constricto ultra medium leviter dilatato, segmentis 

 quatuor vcl quinque baseos anteunisque versus apicem nigris, pedibus rufo-testaceis. 

 Long. corp. lin. 2. 



Habitat in Maderte sylvatieis editioribus, rarissimum : exemplar unieum, ad Cruzinhas Julio ineunte 

 .\.D. 1850 a meipso sub foliis arborum dejectis lectum, solum vidi. 



X. rufo-ferruginous, and ojjake. Head large and ovate, exceedingly depressed, and closely beset with 

 ocellated punetui-es ; with the eyes black, and very minute. Pruthurax less distinctly punctured 

 than the rest of the surface (having almost the appearance under the microscope of being deli- 

 cately granulated) ; subquadrate with the sides rounded, being broadest in front and transversely 

 truncated both before and behind ; with the anterior angles deflexcd ; and with a broad and deep 

 dorsal channel down the centre. Scutellum large and shield-shaped, the mesothorax bemg partly 

 exposed at its edges. Elytra more pubescent than the head and prothorax ; exceedingly abbre- 

 viated, and enveloping the sides of the body ; rather narrowed and rounded at the shoulders, and 

 waved behind (especially at the outer angles). Abdomen also pubescent, elongated, strongly 

 margined, constricted in front and a little expanded beyond the middle ; all the segments, except 

 the ultimate and penultimate ones, together with the antenna except the first two or three joints, 

 black. Legs thick, and rufo-testaceous. 



Apparently of the utmost rarity, the only specimen wliich I have seen having 

 been captured (early in July of 1850) from beneath fallen leaves at the edges of a 

 minute trickling stream in the lofty sylvan district of the Cruzinhas, — upwards of 

 5000 feet above the sea. Apart from its greater size and thickened lunlis, it may 

 be kuo^\-n by its large scutellum- and head (the latter of which is much flattened 

 and coarsely punctured), opake surface, and by its deeply channeled and anteriorly- 

 widened prothorax. 



* In their very short elytra, and in the pubescent (vuispinulose) inner lobe of their maxiUa;, they agree 

 indeed with Myrmedonia. The outer maxillary lobe however of that genus (which is so greatly produced 

 as to equal the palpus in length), in conjunction with its differently constructed upper lip and ligula, its 

 distinct paraglossne and its quadriarticiUate anterior feet, will (apart from the other characters enumerated 

 above) readily remove it from JLenomma. 



