514 Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston on the 
metasternum, elongate ; tlieir rostrum (wlilcli varies in 
length according to the species, but which is never very 
long) is robust and linear, though sometimes obsoletely 
constricted towards the base ; and their third tarsal joint 
is either slightly bilobed, or else narrow and simple. In 
the European P. Iluttoni, which must be regarded as the 
type of the genus, as well as in the P. Zealandicum, and 
in the two species from Chili, the second articulation of 
the 5-jointed funiculus is appreciably a little longer than 
those which follow it ; but this is less evidently the case in 
the other members of the group which have hitherto been 
observed. The Pentarthra are somewhat peculiar in their 
habits, — attaching themselves to old planks, boards, rafters, 
casks, &c., on the dry, and often tinder-like, Avood of which 
they appear to subsist (and that too, occasionally, when the 
latter are even partly buried in the soil) ; a mode of life 
which is equally indicated in (the nearly blind) Amauror- 
rhinus, and in Hexarthrum of the true Cossonides. On this 
account we may expect that their acquired areas of distribu- 
tion will be found eventually to be wide ; and, in accordance 
with this conjecture, it is a significant fact that the expo- 
nents Avhich have hitherto been discovered should occur in 
countries so remote from each other as western Europe,* 
* Until qnite recently I bad looked upon the P. Iluttoni as peculiar to 
England, and indeed it has not as yet been recorded for any other country; 
but, havinj^, a few weeks ago, received some Cossonidcp- from Dr. Shar]), I 
was surprised to find that two typical examples (which were included 
amongst them), of the "Rlnjncolus Ilcrvci" of AWaxA. {Abeille,\. 475. 
1869), and which appear to have been captured at Renncs, are identical 
with my Pcntarthntm Iluttoni, described (fifteen years before) from 
examples taken near Exeter. In the Munich Catalogue the department of 
FiuisteiTC is given as the locality for the "JlJtyncolus Hei-rei ;" so that at 
any rate the extreme western portion of Brittany is the only region, beyond 
England, in which it has hitherto been observed ; and it is a significant 
fact, from a geographical point of view, that that particular district is 
exactly opposite to Devonshire — on the southern side of the Channel. Its 
precise places of cajiture in this country are, up to the present date, three, — 
namely, the vicinity of Exeter (where it was met with originally, at 
Alpbington, by my nephew, the Rev. 11. W. Hutton) ; Teigumouth (where 
on two or three different occnsicms I have myself found it), and Plymouth 
(whei'e it was detected by Mr. Hea<ling) Apart from its many other 
characters, the fact of its funiculus being composed of only five joints 
ought certainly to have prevented it from being re-described as a li.hyn- 
cfll us— in which that organ has invariably seven articulations ; but the 
slovenly manner in which continental entomologists are apt to mount their 
specimens, every limb and joint being hopelessly concealed beneath, will 
perhaps explain a blunder which is nevertheless utterly unjiardonable. It 
is scarcely less fragr:int however th;in the similar miscalculation of the 
funiculus-joints in Churorrhlmis, which has resulted in that genus having 
been assigned hitherto to a subfamily with which it Las next to nothing in 
