CANARIAN COLKOPTKRA. 195 



remarked) in stating that the antennae of Ootoma are 9-articulate, 

 for they have distinctly ten joints, — the pentaphyllous club appro- 

 priating (as in Pachydema) five of them. Both sexes are winged ; 

 and the habits of the species (which have very much the external 

 aspect of the Elapliocerai) are subterraneous, like those of the earth- 

 boring i27i?zo<ro^i ( = Geotrogus, Guerin) of northern Africa. 



Were it not that M. Brulle expressly mentions that he had not 

 seen the female of his Melolontha {Ootoma) ohscura, I should have 

 concluded that the difference to which he calls attention, in the fact 

 of the maxillarj' palpi of that species having their terminal joint hut 

 very sligJitly under than the preceding one, and which he regards as 

 abnormal, was simply due to his having drawn up his diagnosis from 

 a female spemnen ; but as the great length of its antennal clava 

 necessarily implies that it was a male one, this hypothesis is hardly 

 tenable. 



§ I. ScuteUum impunctatum, sed lineis duabns ohliquis postice 

 connexis ionpresstiin. 



a. Tarsorxm intermediorum masculoruni art. pemdtimifs 

 aidytus viw setoso-peniciUatus. 



312. Ootoma bipartita. 



0. nigra, nitida, subtus (abdomine excepto) necnon supra ad margines 

 longe subnigrescenti-pilosa, elj^tris rufo-castaneis ; capite densis- 

 sime punctato, clypeo recuiTo ad latera ampliato, a fronte linea 

 obsoleta diviso ; prothorace dense punctato ; elytris parcius subru- 

 goso-punctatis, singulis stria suturali sat profundi! lineisque tribus 

 obsoletis instructis ; pedibus piceis, tarsis clarioribus ; palpis an- 

 tennisque rufo-testaceis, clava pallidiore. 



Mas plerumque minor, pygidio propj-gidioque subtilius punctatis, an- 

 tennarum clava elongata, palporum maxillarium articulo ultimo 

 lato obovato. 



Foem. plerumque major, pygidio propygidioque profundius punctatis, 

 antennarum clava breviore, palponira maxillarium articulo ultimo 

 subcylindrico (quam prsecedens vix crassiore), versus apicem sub- 

 incrassato. — Long. corp. lin. 5-8|. 



Melolontha hi^iirtit&, Bndle, in Webb et Berth. {Col.) 60 (1838). 

 Ootoma bipartita, 5/a«cA., Cat. Col. Mus. de Paris, 120 (1850). 

 Melolontha bipartita, Hartunq, Geoloq. Verhdltn. Lanz. und Fnert. 140 

 et 141. 



Habitat Lanzarotam et Fuerteventnram (rariiis Canariam et Tene- 



riffam), in cuniculis fodiens. 



Although the descriptions which M. Brulle intended to apply to 



o2 



