Descriptions of new exotic Coleoptera. 11 



rodotus, that such of the members of the Entomological Society as 

 miiy have an opportunity will make experiments as to the efficacy of 

 nets in excluding gnats from beds, noticing particularly whether the 

 result be affected by the circumstance of the room being light or 

 dark, or by the colour of the threads or the size of the meshes ; and 

 I trust also that such entomologists as may hereafter travel in Egypt 

 will direct their attention both as to the exact species of gnats which 

 may abound there, and as to the fact whether the fishermen still de- 

 fend themselves from them in the mode pointed out by Herodotus. 



III. Descriptions of some hitherto micharacterized exotic 

 Coleoptera, chiejiij from New Holland. By the Rev. F. 

 W. Hope, M.A.I F.ll.S., L.S., S)C. 



[Read December 2, 1833.] 



Order COLEOPTERA. 



Family Gyrinid^e ? 



Adelotopus*, Hope. (Genus novum.) 



Antennce 11 -articulatse, articulo Imo maximo, 2do minori rotun- 

 dato, 3tio parvo, tenui, hoc et reliquis clavam elongato-ovalem, 

 compressam efformantibus. 



Caput breve in thoracem ad oculos immersum. 



Lnhrum transversum, margine antico fere recto. 



mentators in referring, in the following lines, to the passage of Herodotus in qties- 

 tion, which he quotes : 



" See with delight the great relief appears, 

 Known by the fame of twice a thousand years ; 

 See the close net of size immense and deep 

 Flows round the bed and guards the dome of sleep. 

 What though the gnats incessant wave their wings, 

 Vain their ciforts, and harmless are their stings. 

 Soon as their swarms the adverse bound beset, 

 Checked they retire, nor pass the impervious net." 



He here, like the commentators, regards the modern gnat-curtain as precisely 

 identical with the amphiblcstron of Herodotus, without giving himself the trouble 

 to ])oint out how his epithets 'close' and 'impervious' could be applicable to a 

 casting-net. 



* aS)tA.ij; iiicertus, et to'^ds lucus. 



