218 Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 



tlie preceding. The right mandible of the male is long and sickle- 

 shaped, with a small tooth obliquely truncated below the middle of 

 the inner margin, and between this and the tip of the jaw is a mi- 

 nute acute tooth. The left mandible has two teeth on the inner 

 margin above the middle, the lower one broad and acute, but rather 

 obliquely truncate, whilst the upper one is very small. The right 

 mandible of the female, on the contrary, has two very large equal- 

 sized teeth in the middle of the inner margin, whereas the left jaw in 

 this sex is quite simDar to that of the male. 



There still remains a numerous group of American species (the 

 type of which is Cic. Carolina, Linn.), which differ from the rest of 

 their continental brethren in possessing three teeth in the middle of 

 the inner margin of each jaw, thus resembling the Australian species 

 above noticed, and hence I proposed the name of Tetracha, or four- 

 toothed, for this group, counting the acute apical portion of the man- 

 dible as a fourth tooth. In general, in both sexes, the tooth next 

 below the apex of the jaw is equal in size to, or even larger than, the 

 apical part or tooth itself (thus differing from the Australasian spe- 

 cies), and the middle of the three teeth is smaller than the rest ; but 

 in the left mandible in the males the tooth below the apical tooth is 

 even still larger, whilst the middle tooth is much smaller, and the lower 

 tooth is quite minute. In the female, on the contrary, the middle 

 one of the three teeth of the inner margin is rather larger than the 

 upper one (which is only of a moderate size), and the lower one is 

 small. 



From these particulars (united with the peculiarities of colouring, 

 geographical range and habits of the species) we are enabled to pro- 

 pose well-founded subgenera, a task which has hitherto been con- 

 sidered hopeless in the genera of CicindelidcB. The Old-World spe- 

 cies thus seem to form only one group, divisible however into still 

 smaller sections from the presence or absence of vrings, and form and 

 coloimng of the elytra ; the Australian species stands alone ; and the 

 New-World species constitute the four following subgenera: — 



Ammosia, Westw. Type, M. bifasciata, BruUe. 



, Westw. Type, M. testudinea, Klug. 



Anaira, Hope. Type, M. sepulchralis, Fabr. 

 Tetracha, Westw. Type, M. Carolina, Lino. 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



July 14, 1853.— Prof. Balfour, President, in the Chain 



The following papers were read : — 



1 . " Experiments on the Dyeing Properties of the Lichens," by 

 W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D. 



2. " On the Cryptogamic Plants of the neighbourhood of St. An- 

 drews," by Mr. Alexander O. Black. The author stated that a resi- 

 dence in St. Andrews during the last eighteen months, had given him 



