$Q Mr. H. W. Bates 



on 



Genus Esmeealda. 



J. Thomson, Classif. des Ceramb. p. 303 ; Lacord. 

 Genera, viii. p. 178. 



Distinguished from Pyrodes by the great width and 

 length of the scutellum, which, in the male, is nea;"lj; 

 half the length of the elytra ; and by the metastex^num 

 being* greatly advanced between the middle coxas, and 

 nearly hiding the grooved mesosternum, which lies 

 obliquely on its anterior face ; the presternum is also of 

 great width, and its point does not interlock with tha 

 mesosternum. The antennje in the (^ are very robust, 

 compressed, and subserrate ; the tibiae also are com- 

 pressed into thin blades in both sexes, and the tarsi are 

 excessively short. 



The only species of this charming group hitherto de- 

 scribed is E. suavis, Thoms. But I have no doubt what- 

 ever of this being the ($ of Pyrodes columhinus, of Guerin 

 (said by White, erroneously as I think,* to be the 

 Ceramhyx aurahis of Linnaeus) . I captured the male and 

 female of the following species together, but not in 

 copula, on the trunk of a slender tree, and as the differ- 

 ences between them are not at all greater than in many 

 species of Pyrodes, the conclusion that they are sexes of 

 one and the same species is not to be resisted. 



1. Esmeralda Icetifica, n. sp. 



c? . Oblonga, depressa, viridi-senea, nitidissima, capite 

 antice et infra thoraceque toto testaceo-rufis aureo- 

 tinctis, femoribus 4 anticis et processu metasternali 

 rufis, elytris violaceis, subtilissime rugoso-puncta- 

 tis, bicostatis, triente basali excepta sparsim punc- 

 tatis. 

 Long. 6 lin. 



? . Late oblonga, subdepressa, laete cyanea, scutello 



et corpore subtus violaceis. 

 Long. 9 4 lin. 



Differs from E, columhina, Guer. ( S , suavis, Thoms.) 

 in both sexes, by the basal third of the elytra being 

 glossy, and marked with very few punctures ; the scutel- 

 lum has a few very fine punctures on each side. The 



* The phrase of Linnffius " elytra rubro-viridi-aurata " is not at all ap- 

 plicable to any specinien of E. columhina which I have seen. 



