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V. Characters of a few apparently undescribed Insects 

 collected hy James Gibbon, Esq., at Moreton Bay. By 

 Edward Newman, Esq., F.L.S. 



[Read 4ih February, 1856.] 



Class COLEOPTERA, Linn. 



Stirps ELATERINA, Newman. 



Genus Elater, Linnaeus. 



Sp. 1. Elater {Alius) Gihbom,^e'wm9.n. 



Niger, lanugine hrevi tricolori, i. e., albido, cinereo, nigro, dense 

 vestilus, quoad elytra colore nigra vittatim disposito, elytris et 

 prothorace medianis longitudinaliter detritis, lanugine denu- 

 datis, tunc aterrimis glaberrimis, illis 9-striatis, striis ordi- 

 natim profunde punctis : subtus, lanugine testaceo-fusco omnino 

 dense lectus. (Corp. long. 1-5 unc. ; elytrorum lat. max. 

 •5 unc.) 

 The serrated antennae are short, scarcely half as long at the 

 prothorax and of an opaque dingy black, the basal joints slightly 

 tinged with rust-colour, this being due to the pile, which appears 

 originally to have clothed every part of the insect ; the head is 

 semicircularly notched in front, its colour grey, sparingly inter- 

 spersed with black and testaceous scale-like hairs ; the eyes are 

 black, naked and brilliantly glabrous : the prothorax has on its 

 anterior margin two small teeth, which project slightly over the 

 head ; it is densely covered dorsally with greyish white pile, except 

 along the mesial line, where it appears to have been denuded by 

 friction, and where the exposed dermal envelope is intensely black 

 and brilliantly glabrous ; the grey pile is interrupted on the lateral 

 margins by five equidistant black spots, one occupying each angle 

 and three intervening, the middle one is the largest and is some- 

 what quadrate ; the pile of the prothorax, like that of the head, is 

 interrupted by specks of black and testaceous : the elytra are 

 densely clothed with pile, each has nine striae and the interspaces 

 are alternately slightly raised and slightly depressed ; the pile on 

 the depressed interspaces is tinged with testaceous, that on the 



