Mr. T. V. Wollaston on Additions to Madeiran Coleoptera. 101 



were difficult to secure. Now, in the event of their being some 

 European species, I wish to remark that no water-plants, or 

 anything likely to convey them, have been imported into Pal- 

 meira, so that in all probability they are distributed over a 

 considerable area; and, further, that their habits, as far as ob- 

 served, will account for their having been hitherto overlooked. 

 The first one I took by chance; the others cost me many hours 

 of search. They all occurred in the same tank; but had I not 

 taken precautions to secure a moderate transparency in the 

 water, I think I should hardly have found the last two." 



Fam. Ptiliadse. 



Genus Ptinella. 



Motschulsky, Bull. Mosc. ii. (1845). 



The little genus Ptinella, the external characters of which 

 were enunciated by the Rev. A. Matthews in the ' Zoologist ' for 

 1858, and the structural ones in the same Journal for 1860, 

 may at once be known from the other groups of the Ptiliadce by 

 its posteriorly contracted prothorax (the hinder angles of which 

 are not backwardly produced), its exceedingly short elytra, and 

 by its very long, exposed, and somewhat robust abdomen. The 

 species hitherto known are of a pallid hue ; and in many of them 

 the eyes have been supposed to be obsolete, but the more recent 

 observations of Mr. Matthews have proved that this is not in 

 reality the case. " It always appeared to me somewhat incom- 

 prehensible," says he, " how an animal unendued with sight 

 could not only move with such surprising rapidity in any pro- 

 posed dh-ection, but also avoid the obstacles it met with in its 

 path, as I have often seen these insects do. But the mystery is 

 now solved ; the many species comprised in the blind section of 

 this genus (the " sans yeux" of the ' Faune Francaise') in reality 

 possess as perfect visual organs as fall to the lot of any existing 

 beetle ; the only peculiarity of these organs being the fact that 

 they are concolorous with the other parts of the head, and situ- 

 ated mainly on its lower surface, a small portion only being 

 visible from above." 



Ptinella aptera, Guer. 

 P. oblonga, testacea, subnitida et parce pubescens ; oculis paulo pro- 

 minentibus nigris ; capite seinicirculari ; prothorace ad latera 

 rotundato, basi leviter angustiore ; elytris valde abbreviatis, apice 

 singulatim sat rotundatis, versus humeros gradatim angustioribus ; 

 antennis pedibusque pallido-testaceis. 

 Long. corp. lin. vix \. 

 Habitat Maderam : sub cortice prope urbem Funchalensem mense 



Decembri a.d. 18G0 detexit Dom. Bewicke. 

 Ptilium apterum, Guerin, Rev. Zool. 90 (1839). 



