CANARIAN COLEOPTERA. 495 



Variat prothorace vel immaculato, vel in disco nigrescente. — Long. 

 Corp. lin. 2-2^. 



Phaleria cadaverina,^/-?///e [necFab.], in WebbetBe7-t/i.{Col.)70{183S). 

 picta, Woll, Ann. Nat. Hist. vii. 246 (1861). 



Habitat in arenosis maritimis Lanzarotte, Fuerteventurae et Canariae, 

 hinc inde vulgaris. 



I have found it necessary to alter the trivial name of this Phaleria, 

 that of picta having been preoccupied by Mannerheim (in 1843) for 

 a species from Sitka. It is common on, and near, the sea-shore in 

 Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, and Grand Canary (in the first of which 

 it was also found by Mr. Gray) — where it burrows in the sand 

 beneath marine, and other, rejectamenta. It is abundantly distinct 

 from the P. cadaverina — not merely in colouring, but likewise in its 

 brighter and more finely punctulated surface, in the edges of its body 

 being conspicuously ciliated, and in its prothorax and elytra being, 

 both of them, a Httle less convex — the latter having also their striae 

 more evidently crenulated, whilst the former is a trifle smaller and 

 more narrowly margined, as well as less equally rounded at the sides 

 (which are straighter posteriorly, causing the hinder angles to be 

 somewhat more sharply defined). The black discal patch of each 

 elytron is nearly always so immensely developed that the two are 

 confluent ; and in highly coloured examples they cover (when thus 

 united) almost the whole surface except the margins. The P. ornata 

 is, on the average, a trifle smaller than the cmlavenna ; its paUid 

 portions are usually of a clearer testaceous-yellow ; and its protho- 

 racic disc is frequently much darkened. In M. BruUe's inaccurate 

 Catalogue it is referred (without even a comment) to the cadaverina 

 — as I ascertained for certain, when in Paris, by an examination of 

 Messrs. Webb and Berthelot's specimens (which are normal ones of 

 the ornata, and were found, according to a label appended to them, 

 in " Grand Canary ") *. 



Fam. 72. ULOMIDiE. 



Genus 278. GNATHOCEEUS. 

 Thunberg, Act. Holmiens. 47 (1814). 



* In general colouring the P. ornata has a good deal in common with tlie P. 

 Clarkii, from the Cape de Verdes ; but that insect is more oblong and much less 

 convex, less shining (or more coarsely alutaceous), and, like the P. cadaverina, 

 almost entirely free from any appearance of cilia at its edges : its prothorax is 

 considerably smaller, quite equally rounded laterally, and with the basal fovejB 

 deeper and more elongate ; its elytra are straighter at the sides, more rectangular 

 at the shoulders, with the dark portions differently shaped, with their stria; very 

 much finer, and with their interstices flatter ; and its tibife and feet are slenderer. 



