92 Mr. A. Murray on Coleoptera from Old Calabar. 



of the former species; but it is rough and rugose, instead of 

 being shining and more or less smooth. 



Apparently more numerous than the preceding species of this 

 section, but still received only in very small numbers. 



§ 2. Thorax with anterior angles not prominent^ projecting. 



The species in this section have not the same facies as the pre- 

 ceding species. They are large, coarse, black insects, with much 

 more real affinity to the genus Apate than to the species of the 

 present section, which contains the smaller Bostrichi, such as 

 B. varius, Illig. {Dufourii, Latr.), &c. Indeed the distinction 

 between Apate and Bostrichus (as that genus is now defined by 

 Lacordaire) would better rest (according to my judgment) on 

 the facies of the insects than on whether the antennae have the 

 club compact and close or open and loose. There are all 

 degrees of difference in this character to be found in the spe- 

 cies forming the two genera ; and I should have preferred that 

 Apate had been reserved for all the large, coarse, black species, 

 while Bostrichus was kept for the smaller ones. Eut few genera 

 can be so well defined as to escape criticism, at least when they 

 contain more than one species ; and to attempt to disturb 

 Lacordaire^s arrangement now would be a much worse evil than 

 to preserve some incongruous or ill-characterized genera. A 

 fixed arrangement that we all know and can refer to as a 

 standard is what we have wanted for thirty years past, what 

 Lacordaire's ^Genera^ was started to supply, and what that 

 wonderful work has most successfully accomplished. 



4. Bostrichus brunneus. 



Augustus, brunneus ; thorace duobus parvis dentibus uncinatis, 

 antice projicientibus, et post hos quatuor vel quinque liueis 

 transversis dentium minorum ; clytris lincatim punctatis, 

 lineis irregularibus vix strias formantibus, apice rotundato sat 

 abrupte declivo. 



Long. 3^ lin., lat. 1 lin. 



The species in question is narrow, dull, and brown. The head 

 is finely papillose or granulated, with a shallow transverse 

 furrow across the front between the eyes, wider and tumid 

 behind this depression ; in the middle of the depression there is 

 a short, transverse, slightly raised, smooth line ; there is a little 

 fulvous pile on the front of the epistome; the margin of the 

 labrum is also fringed with fulvous pile. The thorax is as broad 

 as long, widest in the middle, sinuate before the posterior 

 angles, which are slightly prominent ; the anterior angles are 

 rounded, and terminate in front in two short but rather pro- 



