1908.] Catalogue of the Coleoptcm of South Africa. 549 



latter. It includes insects, strikingly depressed, or only slightly 

 convex on the upper side, long, parallel, usually black but occasionally 

 brown and very shiny, met with under the bark of decaying or rotten 

 trees that are lying on the ground. Lacordaire says when they 

 fear capture they emit from the mouth and from beneath the elytra 

 a colourless fluid which spreads all over them. 



According to Sharp,, the larvae are very interesting, from the fact 

 that they appear to have only four legs ; this is not, however, the 

 case, because the posterior pair are reduced " to a paw-like structure 

 bearing in some cases several hard digits, the function of which is to 

 scrape striated areas on the preceding pair of legs and so to produce 

 sound." The anal opening of the larva is transverse with the upper 

 part slit longitudinally, somewhat in the manner of the Scarabaeidous 

 larvae. The perfect insect does not seem to possess sound-producing 

 organs. 



Ligula sharply tri-dentate, even conical in front ; mentum very 

 deeply cut out rectangularly for the reception of the ligula ; maxillae 

 with the inner and upper lobe sharply dentate inwardly ; labial palpi 

 inserted laterally near the edge ; labrum large, free ; mandibles with 

 several inner teeth and a large molar one at the base preceded by 

 another movable, or seemingly so, immediately in front of it; antennae 

 with the terminal 3-6 joints lamellate, the lamellae of the antennae 

 brought together by the curling up of the antenna, instead of being 

 coadapted as in the Scarabceidcs ; mesothorax with a strong peduncle ; 

 scutellum situated on the peduncle ; elytra with ten furrows on each 

 side. 



Three species of Passalid& are recorded from the South African 

 area. I know one only, Eumelosomus sansibaricus ; it is plainly a 

 straggler, and the most southern place from which I know it to be 

 recorded is Zululand. 



Gen. EUMELOSOMUS, Kuw., 

 Deutsch. Entom. Zeitschr., 1891, p. 190. 

 Mentum large, sub-concave ; ligula carinate in the middle and 

 sloping on each side, ending in a long, central spine, upper lobe of 

 maxillae ending in a falciform hook, inner lobe with an upper hook 

 and a smaller one in the centre, and having in the middle and above 

 the molar tooth two broad laminate, transverse, emarginate ones, 

 the one above the molar has faint traces of a suture at the base ; 

 mandibles robust, arcuate, obtusely bifid at tip ; head transverse, 

 labrum scooped in the centre, epistoma with five porrect teeth, 

 frontal part with a carinate triangle and two sharp tubercles near 



