6Q COLEOPTERA. 



the nests of a small ant {Tapinoma erratica), in a sandy 

 place at Bournemouth, (luring the last summer. 



The capture of this species in England will probably save 

 the lives of many a Myrmeclonia canaliculata, next to which 

 common insect, and as if allied to it, it is placed by Erichson 

 and Kraatz. I must confess that I have often bottled that pre- 

 eminently Brachelytrous little beast in the hope of being 

 able to detect in this country the insect which I supposed to 

 bear a cognate form to it. No two species, however, could 

 well be more unlike, and yet remain in the same genus ; 

 indeed, it seems to me that a further separation is more 

 required in Myrniedonia than in many other split genera, 

 for to consider the huge Gyrophagnoid Maworthi as own 

 brother to canaliculata argues the most perfect disregard for 

 external characters, which cannot always be despised. 



The present insect has somewhat the facies of a very large 

 Ocalea rivularisj with the attennse of Callicerus rigidi- 

 cor?iis ; or it may be better likened to an enlarged edition of 

 Homalota angustula, with increased antenna. It is larger, 

 broader, flatter, and more parallel than 31^ canaliculata; 

 rufo-testaceous, with the head, thorax and most of the 

 abdomen pitchy, the base of the segments, of the latter being 

 very deeply transversely channelled, and the (apparent) fourth 

 segment having in the middle of its upper surface a wide, 

 flat, sharply defined, and somewhat triangular elevation, 

 broadest behind, occupying nearly all the depth of the seg- 

 ment, and caused by two furrows diverging from the centre 

 of the base, wdiich exhibits a shallow semicircular emargina- 

 tion. The entire hinder margin of the same segment is also 

 slightly emarginate. 



According to Dr. Kraatz 31. riyida has a similar abdo- 

 minal formation; and the M. luberiventris and phi/sogastra 



