478 CANARIAN COLEOPTERA. 



So excessively variable is this Pimelia, both in stature and in the 

 greater or less development of its elytral tubercles, that, were only a 

 few examples of it present, representing the extremes, they might 

 well be regarded as specifically distinct; nevertheless, after a most 

 careful inspection of a large series, collected in the different districts 

 of Grand Canary (to which island it seems to be peculiar), I am 

 quite satisfied that they merge gradually into each other, and must 

 all of them be referred to a single species. Apart, however, from 

 this instability of the elytral tubercles, which are either immensely 

 developed, and wart-like, or else obsolete (but which, when present, 

 are always exceedingly /(?w in number, somewhat longitudinally dis- 

 posed between the costse, and in every instance minute on the lateral 

 interval), the insect may be known by its usually rather shining 

 surface ; by the tubercles of its prothorax being large and compara- 

 tively remote at the sides, and with a tendency/ to spread themselves 

 over the rest of the surface (except the actual disc), where, however, 

 they are smaller ; and by its elytra being most roughly and sharply 

 serrated along their margin, or lateral ridge, and with the sublateral 

 one also similarly (though less coarsely) constructed, whilst the discal 

 one is sparingly serrated behind but simple and indistinct in front, 

 and the sixtural one is simple, and more or less obsolete, throughout. 

 The P. serrimartjQ is, on the average, a smaller species than any of the 

 others here enumerated, descending to a comparatively diminutive 

 size for a Pimelia ; and the upper face of its tibiae is less concave. 



M. Bi-ullo's name of verrucosa cannot be retained for the species, 

 it having been preoccupied for a Pimelia by Fischer de Waldheim 

 in 1821. 



§ II. Scutellum hrevissimum, pronoto tectum (nee pone basin ely- 

 trorum ipsissimam extendens), ergo superne vix ohservanehmi. 

 [Subg. Aphanaspis, Woll.] 



720. Pimelia granulicollis, n. sp. 



P. subopaca ; capite parcissime et leviter punctate ; prothorace an- 

 gustulo, minus convexo, basi in medio obsoletissime (vix perspicuc) 

 angulatim subproducto, dense et minute granulato et granulis 

 majoribus versus latera (praesertim postice) parce adsperso ; elytris 

 rotundato-ovalibus, dense, sed minute et leviter, malleato-rugu- 

 losis, versus latera parcissime et leviter tuberculatis (tuberculis 

 postice in granula mergentibus), in limbo leviter serratis, sin- 

 gulis costis tribus (sublaterali panim distincta, tuberculato-ser- 

 rata, sed discali et subsuturali minus elcvatis, antice simijlicibus) 

 instructis ; tibiis in facie superiore brevatcr cinereo-pubescentibus. 

 — Long. corp. lin. 9-12. 



