46 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on some new or little-known 



ScROBiGEE [Cleridse]. 

 Spinola, Monog. de Clerites, i. p. 230. 



Scrobiger alhocinctus. 

 8. ater ; prothorace subtilissime punctate ; elytris fasciis duabus albis, 



una subobsoleta, altera, pone medio, obliqua. 

 Hah. Moreton Bay. 



Nearly allied to ^S". idoneus, Newm., but tbe eyes are smaller and less 

 prominent, the prothorax more finely punctured, the anterior band on 

 the elytra nearly obsolete and more median, and tbe posterior directly 

 oblique, not curved. Length 5 lines. 



CoRMODEs [Cleridse], 

 Head rather short, broad in front. Eyes ovate, vertical, scarcely emar- 

 ginate. Antennae as long as the thorax, arising laterally in front of the 

 eyes, 11-jointed, the first largest, the second shorter than the third, 

 the last three forming a slender pointed club. Palpi with the terminal 

 joint of the labial secm-iform, of the maxillary cylindrical. Labrum 

 small, hairy. Prothorax subdepressed, rounded in front and at the 

 sides, contracted posteriorly, — the pronotuni confoimded with the para- 

 pleura. Scutellum transverse. Elytra depressed, narrowed at the base, 

 gradually expanding at the sides, with a strongly marked carina at the 

 shoulder, but no humeral angle. Wings none. Legs stout, femora 

 clavate, tibiae and tarsi short, the first tarsal joint nearly covered above 

 by the second ; claws simple. Abdomen of five segments. 



Although very dissimilar in habit to the Cleridae in general, there 

 is no doubt that this genus is closely allied to Natalis. It is, I 

 believe, the only one of its family without wings, — a condition due, 

 as Mr. Darwin tells us, in reference to other insular apterous Co- 

 leoptera, to " the action of natural selection, but combined probably 

 with disuse," and therefore it would not, perhaps, be very difScult 

 for the advocates of his theory to suppose Cormodes a descendant of 

 Natalis, to which it certainly bears a very peculiar resemblance. 

 The absence of a real humeral angle, but its simulation by an ele- 

 vated and narrow carina (absent in all other Cleridse), and the, in 

 other respects, well-developed elytra, do not appear to lead to the 

 conclusion of the gradual reduction of the wings which such an ex- 

 planation implies, because corresponding with this, presumed reduc- 

 tion we have an unaccountable and apparently unnecessary increase 

 of the elytra, combined, however, with the absorption of the humeral 

 angle. I possess a Longicorn, closely allied to Mr. WoUaston's oceanic 

 genus Deucalion, also without humeral angles, but having perfect, 

 although excessively smaU, wings, and of course entirely useless for 

 the purpose of flight ; but in this case the wings might at any time 



