the Atlantic Cossonules. 387 



Thus, whilst Pentatemnus resembles in some respects Lc'ipom- 

 mola and in others Mcsoxcnus, its structural details entirely forbid 

 its being associated with either of them; though I think that the 

 characters which would tend to affiliate it with the former are the 

 more important ones, and that it must be considered therefore as 

 nearer akin to the Porto Santan genus than to the wood-feeding 

 JMcsoxeni of Madeira and Tenerifte. 



I do not hesitate in regarding as "blind" the members of the 

 present and three following genera, because, although it is only in 

 two of them {OmjchoUps and Leipommala) that the eyes are abso- 

 lutely untraccahlc beneath the highest power of the microscope, it is 

 nevertheless equally certain that the others {Penlatemnus and 7)/e- 

 soxenus) have their visual organs so excessively imperfect, minute, 

 deeply immersed and rudimentary, that they are strictly what 

 would be termed " obsolete;" and there can be no doubt there- 

 fore, I imagine, that these latter ones likewise must be practically 

 blind. 



lu spite of their many and important discrepancies (for the 

 exponent of the second genus, in the construction of its almost 

 incomprehensible feet, is perhaps one of the most extraordinary 

 Coleopterous insects which has ever been made known) I am 

 nevertheless convinced, after a long and careful consideration of 

 them, that at any rate the first three of these groups are so closely 

 allied that no system of classification, which would tend on 

 account of those "discrepancies" to place them far asunder, can 

 possibly be a natural one. Indeed, their want of sight, their 

 coarsely-sculptured j3i/o5e bodies, obsolete wings and sub-fossorial 

 habits (the insects residing underground at the roots of the few 

 plants which stud the tracts of drifting sand in the eastern islands 

 of the Canarian, and northern one of the Madeiran, Archipelago,) 

 are all particulars, and very expressive ones, in which they are 

 literally coincident. And, when we take into account tlie extreme 

 peculiarity of their mode of life (for the Rhynchophora) and their 

 remarkable feature of a hairy surface (especially for Cossonides, 

 and for creatures, moreover, which live at a considerable depth in 

 the sand — never rising to the surface except when brought there 

 by accident or design), we shall be still further struck by the 

 fact, that the habits of these Curculios are as marvellous as they 

 are identical inter se. 



If we may consider, therefore, their near relationship as a 

 settled point, it becomes comparatively easy to discuss their 

 affinities; for, had the second of them only (OnychoUps) been 

 brought to light, we might have had great difficulty in referring it 



