CANAKIAN COLEOPTEllA. 199 



Dasysterna canariensis ?, Rambur, Ann. de la Soc. Ent. de France^ 331 



(1843). 

 Ootoma castanea, Blanch., Cat. Col. Mas. de Paris, 120 (1850). 



Habitat Teneriifam, rarissime, in cuniculis fodiens. 



The present Ootoma (which seems, so far as observed hitherto, to 

 be peculiar to Teneriffe) might be almost regarded at first sight as a 

 mere insular modification of the 0. fuscipennis ; nevertheless, since 

 the sexual proportions of its palpi are different, I am bound to regard 

 its other small distinctions as of greater importance than I should 

 have been inclined to have done had there been no structural charac- 

 ter to warrant its separation. Judging from the few examples which 

 I have seen, it is, on the average, a little smaller than that insect ; its 

 colour is more variable (being sometimes of a pale reddish-chestnut, 

 and at others of a dark piceous-brown) ; its body beneath is nearly 

 always of a more paUid hue than is the case in that species (being 

 often yellowish-testaceous) ; its clypeus is relatively a trifle shorter, 

 more sinuated in front, less recurved and developed at the sides (and 

 therefore less laterally -prominent immediately in front of either eye), 

 and more evidently divided from the forehead by a straight transverse 

 line ; its prothorax is just perceptibly more densely punctured, and 

 less coarsely margined along its extreme basal edge ; its elytra have 

 their sutural stria usually less deep ; its scutellum is beset with a few 

 rather large pimctui-es, but apparently not impressed with two oblique 

 Knes ; and its anterior tibiae have their external teeth perhaps some- 

 what less developed. In addition to which, the terminal joint of its 

 maxillary palpi is relatively smaller in both sexes, — being, also, more 

 regularly oval in the males and much more acuminated (or conical) in 

 the females. 



The only two of the above diagnostic features which M. Brulle has 

 mentioned are, the fact of its abdomen being pale and of its clypeus 

 being separated from the forehead by a transverse line ; nevertheless 

 the latter of these is, after all, only a relative difference, the suture 

 being merely a little more evident in the 0. castanea than in the other 

 species ; whereas his description would certainly lead to the supposi- 

 tion that it was only traceable in the present one. However, I think 

 there is sufficient to conclude (even from such meagre evidence) that 

 the Teneriffan insect is the one which he referred to (described from 

 a single indi\ddual, without anterior feet, palpi, and antennae !) under 

 the trivial name of castanea*. 



* Scarcely more intelligible is Rambur' s description of liis Dasysterna cana- 

 riensis, nearly all the characters wliich he gives being merely such as are common 

 to the Ootomas generally. Nevertheless, since he alludes to the species as " infra 



