396 Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston on 



insects for the reception of vvliicli I u'oiild now propose tlie pre- 

 sent genus. In a late paper on " Additions to the Madeiran 

 Coleoptera," published in tiie " Annals of Natural History" for 

 last year, I described these species minutely, and, whilst record- 

 ing them as aberrant Penlartlira, stated the exact points in which 

 they differed from Penlartliriim proper, — as then solely repre- 

 sented by the /'. Ilatton'i, from the west of Enghind. I will 

 simply add J therefore, that the detection by ]\lr. Bcwicke of a 

 second Pentarthrum, in the island of Ascension, has so completely 

 confirmed my original diagnosis of the group (enabling me, inter 

 alia, to pronounce for certain, what I was formerly only able to 

 suspect, that the antennoe are in both sexes strictly medial), that 

 I can no longer admit into it the two weevils enumerated below, — 

 the characters of which aie very different from the corresponding 

 ones of the veritable Peiitarthra : indeed, the possession of a 

 5-jointed funiculus is almost the only essential peculiarity in 

 which the members of this genera agree. 



The Mesoxeni are at once separated from the Pcntarthra by 

 their almost obsolete eyes* (which are so extremely rudimentary 

 and abortive that there can be but little doubt that the creatures 

 must be practically blind), by their quite obsolete scutclla, l)y 

 their longer, narrower, and more arcuated rostra, which is slightly 

 widened at the point of junction of the antenntc, and by these 

 latter being very decidedly antc-mcdial in their insertion. 'J'he 

 Mesoxeni, also, are more convex, fusiform and less roughened 

 insects than the Pcntarthra (which are narrow, parallel and 

 deeply sculptured, like the Mesites and Cossoni) ; and their pro- 

 thoraces are less conical, — being rounded at the sides, instead of 

 being widest at the extreme base. 



30. Mesoxemis Mo}iizianus, Woll. (PI. 1!), fig. 4.) 



Pentarthrum Monizianwn, Woll., Ann. of Nat. IJist. (Ser. 3), 

 v. 450 (18C0). 



Habitat insulas Maderenses et. Canarienses, raiissimns: spe- 

 cimen unicum mense Martio a. d. 1857 ad Orotavam TenerifliH 

 primus deprehensi, sed tempore vernali 1858 in horto quodam 

 Funchalensi Maderje copiosior collegit Dom. Moniz. 



Apparently extremely rare, or at any rale very local ; and the 

 only one of the Atlantic Cossonides which has hitherto been ob- 



* For a flfsciijition of (liese eyes, i)i(/e " Annals of Nalur.\l Ilisioiy" (?er. 3), 

 V. 450 (1860). 



