410 CANARIAN COLEOPTERA. 



T. Lowo informs me is probably the E. simplex ; on which plant I 

 have taken it, rather abundantly, at the base of the Organo Rocks in 

 the sylvan region of the Ag-ua Mansa in Teneriffe. Whilst in the 

 island of Hierro, however, during February 1858, I captured it spa- 

 ringly from a smaller Echium (I believe the common E. violaceum) 

 on the hills to the westward of Valverde. In Teneriffe it was met 

 with also by Dr. Crotch*. 



628. Longitarsus messerschmidtisB. 

 Longitarsus mcsserschmidtijB, JVoIL, Journ. of Ent. i. 6 (1860). 

 Teinodactyla messerschmidtise, Allanl, Ann. ae la Soc. Ent. de France, 

 319 (1862). 



Habitat in TenerifTa, Palma et Hierro, ad folia Messersclimidtioe 

 fruticosce hinc inde frequens. 



In my Paper " on the Canarian Ilalticidce," above referred to, I 

 said, concerning this species, " It is not without some little hesita- 

 tion I regard the present Lonr/itarsus as distinct from the preceding 

 one ; nevertheless, since its normal fades is very dissimilar, and its 

 habits different, I tliinli it is scarcely safe to amalgamate the two. 

 Indeed in its general aspect it is so unlike the L. persimilis that no 

 one could ever suppose them to be identical, did not an occasional 

 (though very rare) variety of the present insect make such a curious 

 approach, in the arrangement of its colouring, to its ally, as to lead 

 one to suspect that it may be but a phasis of the latter, gradually 

 assumed through the adoption of a totally different plant for its sub- 

 sistence. Still this is but conjecture, and I therefore prefer treating 

 the two as separate. In its typical state, the L. messerschmidtice isj 

 on the average, a trifle smaller and narrower than its ally, its sculp- 

 ture is less deep, and it is of a uniformly pale, brownish -testaceous 

 hue. Its elytra, however (in which case the apices of its posterior 



* The L. pcrsimilis very closely resembles at first sight the Macleiran L. Maso7ii 

 [=iso2}lcxidis olim); "nevertheless, on a nearer inspection," as I stated in my 

 Paper on the Canarian Halticklce, " it possesses such a number of minor cha- 

 racters peculiarly its own that I cannot feel justified, despite tlie many points of 

 resemblance in the two insects, in regarding them as otherwise than truly distinct, 

 though clearly members of the same geographical province. The Canarian spe- 

 cies may be readily known from the Madeiran one by its uniformly smaller size, 

 rather shorter and more lunulate prothorax (which is a little more truncated in 

 front, and has the hinder angles more rounded off, and the sides somewhat more 

 angulated in the middle), and by its entire sculpture, which is denser and very 

 much more coarse, especially on the elytra (which are also more evidently striated 

 than is the case in the L. Masoni). Its elytra, likewise, are slightly more trun- 

 cated at their apex, its whole surface is much less opake, and fts coloration is 

 altogether a little different — its head being less black, or more piceous, its pro- 

 thorax more evidently r??/b-testaceous, its legs and elytra not quite so pale, and 

 the dark portions of the latter smaller in size ; /. e. the humeral and discal iJatches 

 are reduced in dimensions, and the sutural line is equal tlu'oughout." 



