161 
Coleopterous Genus Upis. 
of the largest trees in the mountainous woods of Jamaica, and 
attains a height of thirty or forty feet. The fruit, when fully ripe, 
has a sweet luscious taste, and is considered an excellent article 
for the dessert. If not completely ripe, and some say almost pu- 
trid, it is acrid, and cannot be eaten. The ovary has from twelve 
to six divisions, the fruit being a many- seeded apple, the seeds 
being inclosed in compressed osseous nuts. On opening this seed, 
a perfect beetle belonging to the section Hcteromera, family Tene- 
bnonidce, and genus Upis, was found. It was ll-12ths of an inch 
in length. The shell was filled with a wool-like substance, which 
the aforesaid botanists state to have been evidently introduced 
through the hole at the top. Notwithstanding, it w r as evident on 
burning a small portion of it, that it was not an animal substance; 
probably it was cotton, from the cotton plant. I have represented 
th is insect at Fig. 15 of Plate XIV. of the natural size, and 
have only to observe respecting it, that I have seen the same 
insect labelled in Mr. Hope’s collection with the specific name 
of Morio, although Schonherr, in his Synonymia Insectorum, 
gives that name as synonymous with our British Tenebrio obscurus. 
The insect is entirely of a black colour, with the exception of the 
hairs upon the tarsi, which are piceous ; the third joint of the an- 
tennte is considerably elongated ; the thorax (upon the form of 
which the chief differences between Upis and Tenebrio rest) is 
somewhat cordate truncate, with the posterior angles acute, the 
lateral margins distinct. It is narrower than the elytra, which 
are obscure, and upon each of which are eight punctate striae, the 
central ones being united behind. 
Amongst the cotton which had been introduced into the shell 
I found the exuviae of the preparatory states of this insect, but 
in so tattered a state that I was only able to make out the under 
side of the head and tail, and one of the feet ; these I have repre- 
sented in Figs. 16, 17, and 18. The mandibles of the larvae are 
remarkably dilated, completely covering the base of the antennae, 
which are capable of laying in the excavated part of their under 
surface. 
I should conceive that the insect was — having arrived at the 
perfect state — on the point of endeavouring to make its escape, 
when it was discovered. That it had not been introduced in the 
beetle state into the nut was evident, because the breadth of its 
elytra was considerably more than the diameter of the largest 
hole ; moreover the discovery of the exuviae of the larvae (which, 
it is to be observed, varies considerably from that of Tenebrio 
molitor in the structure of the tail) clearly proves that the insect 
