400 Mr. T. Venioii WolIas(on on 



ilicir respective bases, — will suffice (o distinguish it from all the 

 other Atlantic Cossniiidcs hitherto described. Upon the whole, 

 however, it has perhaps more in common with the Pcnlartlna 

 than with anything else here enumerated, with which in its parallel 

 body and fully-developed scutellum it agrees ; nevertheless, its 

 T-jointcd funiculus and sub-pubescent surface will of themselves 

 (apart from its many other, and conspicuous, differential characters) 

 at once separate it from those insects. 



S3. Slcnol'ts acicula, Woll. 



Stawds acicula, Woll., Ins. Mad. 316, tab. vi. f. 5 (1S5J), 

 Id., Cat. xMad. Col. 101 (1857). 



Huhilal jMaderam borealem sylvaticam, rarissima, folia laurorum 

 destruens. 



The S. acicula is excessively rare, and confined, so far as I have 

 hitherto observed, to the laurel-woods of the densest and most 

 inaccessible regions in the north of Madeira, — off ihe foliage of 

 which I have, on three separate occasions, brushed it (though 

 very sparingly). I first detected it, on the 23rd of July, 1850, in 

 the remote sylvan district of the Lombo dos Pecegueiros, towards 

 the eastern edge of the Ribeira de Joao Delgada, — in which same 

 locality I again captured it, on the 26th of the same month, in 

 1855 ; as also, a few weeks later (on the 19th of August), in the 

 Ribeira do Ponteclaro, a small tributary ravine of the Ribeira de 

 Sao Jorge. 



Genus Mesites. (PI. 19, figs. 7, 9.) 



Schonherr, Gen. et Spec. Cure. iv. 1043 (1838). 



The genus Alcsites is a very important one in the Madeiran and 

 Canarian islands, not so much however from the number of its 

 species as from that of its individuals, — though, at the same time, 

 it will probably be admitted that seven well-defined exponents arc 

 sufficient for us to consider it largely represented even as regards 

 \.\\e former also. So far as I have hitherto observed, the Atlantic 

 Mesilcs are either confined to the laurel-woods of intermediate 

 and lofty elevations (where they do the work of devastation on a 

 considerable scale), or else to the rotten Euj^horbia-stems of all 

 altitudes (even down to the level of the sea-shore). In the former 

 case they are moulded on a large type, all more or less (and some 

 very closely) related to the M. Tardil* of the south-western por- 



• I'he BI, Tarda differs from the whole of these closely allied species (i. e. the 

 three Canarian and two Madeiran ones), inler alia, in being more convex and 



