370 CANAKIAN COLEOPTERA. 



the seventh joint being much enlarged, and so closely applied to the 

 club that it seems to (and in fact, in some measui'e, does) form a 

 portion of it. Their tibise are minutely serrated along their inner 

 edge ; and their prothoraces are rather uneven, having a tendency 

 (more or less expressed in the several races and species) to be branded 

 with a transverse irregular fovea, or flexuose line, on either side in 

 the middle, and two small rounded impressions (which are often 

 nearly obsolete, and always a good deal concealed beneath the mi- 

 nute, hardened, granuliform scales with which the surface is covered) 

 on each side of the central Hne on the disc. I have constantly cap- 

 tured them in coitu ; but after a most careful comparison of the two 

 sexes, I can detect no external difFei'ences between them, either in 

 outline or structure, unless it be that the males are occasionally just 

 perceptibly narrower and with their legs a trifle more robust. 



The Herpystici are essentially variable, both in stature and clothing, 

 assuming slightly different phases according to the region which they 

 inhabit, but which pass so imperceptibly into each other (however 

 opposite in the tAVO extremes) that it is impossible to regard any of 

 them as of specific imj)ortance. Thus, what I have treated as the 

 type of the H. eremita (mainly from the fact of the insect having 

 been originally described from an individual of that particular state), 

 although sometimes small, ascends to a large size and has its elytra 

 usually entirely fi'ee from erect hairs — with the exception of a very 

 few towards their apex. This is the form which seems to obtain 

 (subject to trifling modifications) throughout Teneriff'e, Gomera, and 

 Palma. But in certain districts of Grand Canary the examples have 

 the additional pile not confined merely to the apex, but more or less 

 developed over the entire surface of the elytra, — the hairs being 

 sometimes short, decumbent, and but faintly traceable (at any rate 

 anteriorly), sometimes considerablj' longer and more erect, whilst at 

 others they are exceedingly elongated, fine, and thicldy set together. 

 Nevertheless I have observed so many instances in which this deve- 

 lopment of the pubescence is unmistakeably a mere topographical 

 character and not a specific one — as in the Piotes inconstans of the 

 Ptinidce, and the Sitones latipennis of the present family — that I do 

 not consider it so significant as it might at first sight appear to be. 



§ I. Funiculi articidi primus et secnndus inter se longitudine sub- 

 cequales (i. e. secundo primo I'ix Jongiore). 



5G7. Herpysticus eremita. 

 H. elongatus, niger, squamis minutis duris gTanulifornoibus (vel fuseo- 



