INTEODUCTION. 



are not visible from above, beiug covered by the cljpeus, and are 

 shorr, stout, and simple in form. The maxill® are strong biting 

 organs furnished with a number of sharp teeth or cutting blades. 

 The labium is soHd and strongly chitinised. The clypeus is 

 generally well-developed, with founded and upturned edge, but 

 in a few cases it is produced into a narrow snout, as in Tropior- 

 rhynchus, liJimnpUa and Adorrhimjptia. The eyes are often rat her 

 large, and m many of the Adoretini and some species oi Anomala 

 (probably nocturnal in their habits) thev are very large indeed, 

 especially in the males. The antennae consist of 10, or in a great 

 many cases of 9 joints, with a club of invariably three joints of 

 equal size. 



The head, prothorax, and hind-body are very closely fitted 

 together, the first deeply sunk into the second, and the base of 

 the pronotum generally having either an emargination corre- 

 sponding to the front of the scutellum (e. g. PopilUa) or a shght 

 lobe by which the latter is more or less overlapped. In the 

 Oriental Rutelin^ the scutellum is never of very large size, as in 

 some American genera. 



Legs.—ThQ legs are formed as in the Dynastin^. The front 

 coxae are very prominent and contiguous, but the prosternum may 

 be elevated behind them, and in the genus Mimela the process so 

 formed is bent forward at a right angle, hiding the junction and 

 appearing as though interposed between them. The middle coxas 

 are usually also in contact, but in some species of various genera 

 (Anomala, Mimela, Pamstasia, etc.) the mesosternum is produced 

 between them, sometimes forming a long pointed process. Although 

 the difference m the configuration of the lower surface of the body 

 according as such a process is present or absent appears consider- 

 able, the form of the mesosternum seems to have little real 

 significance from the point of view of classification, being found 

 in all degrees of development in species closely related, while a 

 process of practically identical form may appear independently in 

 widely separated genera, as it appears also in the Cetoniin.e and 



MELOLOXTHIIS^iE. 



The feuiora undergo no important changes of form. Occasion- 

 ally the hind femur of the male bears a tooth at its posterior 

 edge, but this occurs only in one Indian species known to me 

 viz. Anomala armata. Sometimes also the hind trochanters are 

 produced in the form of spines {Tropiorrhynchus podagrims and 

 Anomala trochanterica). In certain American genera belonging 

 to different groups of Eutelin.i^ {Macraspis, Gemates) the femora 

 bear well-developed organs for producing sound by rubbing ao-ainst 

 the sides of the body, but nothing of the kind has been found in 

 any Oriental representative, or indeed in any part of the world 

 except Tropical America. 



Tlie front tibia is armed at its outer edge with one, two, or 

 three teeth, but there are never more than three, although' in 

 some species of Adoretus the upper part is finely serrated above 

 the teeth or even between them. The single articulated spine 



