392 Mr. T. Veinon Wollastoii on 



become merged with that which precedes it (as I believe to be th.e 

 case with the hinder ones), or else (as I am inclined to think pro- 

 bable in the anterior pair) entirely lost. 



The front-tarsi (ID, 2b) are very short, slender and small; and, 

 since they do not equal in length the apical projection of the tibia, 

 they are only visible when the insect is looked at obliquely, when 

 they may be seen hanging loosely down, as tliough weak and 

 aboriive, — a peculiarity which is at once confirmed on inspection, 

 for they have every appearance of being useless. They would 

 seem to be comj)osed of four joints of sub-equal breadth, — the 

 second being a little the longest, and the ultimate one regularly 

 oval and furnished at its tip with a few long hairs. There is no 

 indication whatever of ir.igu'icut'i, and tliereforc, as the whole 

 number of articulations (so far as I can detect them) is only four, 

 I conclude that the cJaw-jo'mt must be the missing one. So abbre- 

 viated indeed are these feet, and so cumbersome must be the 

 elongate overhanging tibial-lobe, that one can scarcely understand 

 how they could possibly be brought into play ; but whether their 

 present abortive and imperfect state can have any connection with 

 this fact, or whether the outrageous and most anomalous develop- 

 ment of the four hinder tarsi can have had any correlative ten- 

 dency to weaken the structure of the front ones, it is useless to 

 conjecture. 



The four posterior feet, however, constitute the chief anomaly 

 of this remarkable Curculio ; and it was not until I had looked at 

 them for a considerable time, and had thought over them for many 

 days, that I felt at all satisfied about the nature of their real 

 structure; for their first appearance (19, 2d) is simply that of 

 three apically-bifurcate portions, or joints, arising one out of the 

 other in succession, and each of them diminishing in breadth, as 

 well as in the length of these enormously-developed lateral spini- 

 form lobes. On mounting them, however, in balsam, and throw- 

 ing a strong light through tiiem from beneath {vide 19, 2 c), a basal 

 articulation (which was concealed before within the double and 

 compressed apical-enlargement of the tibia") became at once appa- 

 rent ; whilst, at the same time, I was able to detect in the follow- 

 ing transparent joints distinct indications of what would seem to 

 have been (speaking metaphorically) the size and shape of the 

 or'ighud ]o\n\.s before the present immense lateral appendages were 



which indeed I was, myself, at first inclined to suspect; but I can only say that 

 I liave mounted carefully twelve legs in balsam, and have examined, as opaque 

 objects, those of twelve more eiamples (amounting, on the whole, to eighty-four 

 limbs), and I find no exception to the above statement. 



