312 CANARIAN COLEOPTEEA. 



I can detect no specific difference between four examples of an 

 Apion now before me and two of the A. tnhifcrum, Schon., from 

 northern Africa. The Canarian ones are certainly more seneous, and 

 the erect seta) with which they are clothed are not quite so white ; 

 also their prothoracic punctures are a trifle less coarse and less con- 

 fluent : but none of these are characters of any real importance. The 

 only point indeed in which the least approach to a structural differ- 

 ence seems to be indicated, is that the rostrum (of both sexes) may 

 possibly be a little shorter in the Canarian specimens ; but as the 

 entire individuals happen to be a trifle smaller, and even the length 

 of the rostrum is subject to slight variations in those species in which 

 that organ is so largclj' developed, I do not lay much stress upon this 

 fact. Nevertheless if further material should hereafter prove the two 

 species (however nearly allied) to be really distinct, I would in that 

 case propose the name of tuhuUferum for the Canarian one, in order 

 to express its evident afSnity with the tuhiferum. 



Of the four Canarian examples which have as yet come beneath my 

 notice, three were captured (I believe, from off a species of Cistus) in 

 the sylvan district of El Golfo, on the western side of Hierro, during 

 February 1858 ; and the remaining one, in the following April, on the 

 lofty Pinal of Tarajana, above San Bartolome, in the centre of Grand 

 Canary. It would appear, consequently, to be of the greatest rarity 



in these islands. 



495. Apion austrinum, n. sp. 



A. angustum, nigrum elytris obsolctissime (\-ix perspicue) subme- 

 tallicis, subopacum, squamis cinereis de missis piliformibus parce 

 vestitum ; rostro elongato, lineari, tereti, arcuato, polito, minutis- 

 sime et parce punctulato ; prothorace parvo, subcylindi-ico, punc- 

 tate, fovea centrali antice evanescente canaliculato ; elytris ellip- 

 ticis (postice acutiuscuUs), leviter punctato-striatis ; antennis gra- 

 cilibus, ad basin rufescentioribus. — Long. corp. lin. Ij. 



Habitat Gomeram, a Dom. W. D. Crotch semel captum. 



The only specimen which I have seen of this insignificant little 

 Apion was captured by Dr. Crotch, during the spring of 1862, in 

 Gomera. In its small size, and narrow, elliptic outHne, it has much 

 the appearance of the common European A. scniadus ; it is, however, 

 rather more ovate (or less strictly elliptic) and less clothed with 

 cinereous pubescence, its rostrum is apparently a little shorter and 

 brighter (or less ahitaccous), and its prothorax is a trifle more cy- 

 lindric. The position of its antennae (at any rate in the sex before 

 me) is suffioiently equivocal to render it doubtful to which of my 

 two Sections it should be referred — being implanted distinctly 1)e- 



