CANARIAN COLEOPTERA. 275 



fully, I am satisfied that the whole of these blind, pilose, sand-infest- 

 ing, burrowing Gurculionklce of the Atlantic islands (namely, Penta- 

 temnus, OnychoUps, and the Porto Santan Lipommata) are most 

 intimately allied ; and in my Memoir above alluded to I discussed 

 their afiinities in extenso, together with those of the almost blind 

 Mesoxenus, and arrived at the conclusion that the four genera could 

 not properly, in a natural system of arrangement, be placed far 

 asunder, — adding, "If we may consider, therefore, their near relation- 

 ship as a settled point, it becomes comparatively easy to discuss their 

 affinities ; for, had the second of them only (/. e. Onydiolips) been 

 brought to light, we might have had great difficulty in referring it 

 to any known subfamily or group, — the structure of its four hinder 

 tarsi and other minutiae being quite unintelligible without the aid of 

 some collateral form to suggest a partial explanation. But, granting 

 its kinship with Pentatemnus and LijJommata, we at once connect 

 it with the Mesoxeni (of Madeira and Teneriffe), which Pentatemnus 

 manifestly approaches, and thence with PentartJirum and the typical 

 Cossonides.'^ 



In its mode of life OnychoUps seems to be identical with Pentatem- 

 nus, with which indeed it is found in company. It was first taken, 

 by Mr. Gray and myself, at the end of January 1858, about the roots 

 of the few shrubby plants, around which solid hillocks have been 

 gradually accumulated from the drifting sand, in the arid ti'act to the 

 south of Puerto de Cabras in Fuerteventura — a spot in which I again 

 met with it during April of the following year. And I also captured 

 a single specimen, in a similar situation, on the sandy isthmus of 

 Grand Canary which connects the Isleta with the mainland ; as well 

 as in the little island of Graciosa, off the north of Lanzarote. 



Genus 186. MESOXENUS. 

 WoUaston, Trans. Ent. Sac. Land. v. 395 (1861). 



443. Mesoxenus Monizianus. 



Pentarthrum Moniziauum, WoU., Ann. Nat. Hist. v. 450 (I860). 

 Mesoxenus Monizianus, Id., Trans. Ent. Sac. Land. v. 396. pi. l9. f. 4 

 (1861). 



Habitat in Teneriifa, rarissimus. 



This insect is the only member of the Cossonldes enumerated in 

 the present Catalogue which has been observed hitherto beyond the 

 Canarian Group, it having been detected also in Madeira — by Senhor 

 Moniz, who obtained many specimens of it from under old boards 

 lying on the damp earth, in his garden at Funchal. At the Canaries 



I 2 



