from the Island of St. Vincent. 99 



whilst the submarginal patches of its elytra are smaller, and the 

 hinder fascia (when present) thinner and less suffused. 



A single specimen of it is in Mr. Fry^s collection from St. 

 Vincent, though not captured by himself; and seven older ones, 

 all quite invariable and labelled " Cape Verd/^ are in that of the 

 Rev. Hamlet Clark. Whether this signifies the Cape de Verde 

 group or the Cape Verd promontory, on the opposite coast, 

 Mr, Clark has no note to decide ; but the question is not a very 

 important one, since it is more than probable, from the short 

 distance between the islands and the mainland, that the same 

 species would occur in both localities. 



The present Eunectes cannot be confounded with the E. au- 

 stralis (of which, judging from the diagnosis, I have two un- 

 doubted examples now before me, from Mr. Clark's collection — 

 but which, possibly through mistake, are also labelled " Cape 

 Verd"), Erichson's species being not only smaller, paler, nar- 

 rower, and more oblong, but likewise with its frontal patch 

 greatly reduced, its prothorax immaculate, and its elytral punc- 

 tures much denser and more impressed. It possesses also an 

 important character (not noticed by Erichson) in having the elytra 

 of its females quite plain, or unprovided with that deep lateral elon- 

 gate depression which is more or less evident in the other species. 



In its abbreviated prothoracic band the E. conicollis would 

 seem to agree with the helvolus of Klug (registered by Aube as 

 " var. 7 " of the sticticus), and the fact of Erichson's mentioning 

 the helvolus amongst his (supposed) Angolan Coleoptera might 

 perhaps lead one to suspect that he referred to this actual species 

 from the Cape de Verdes ; but, still, Aube's var. 7 is described 

 as having no elytral fascia (which the E. conicollis undoubtedly 

 has), and therefore King's insect may have been a mere state of 

 the common European sticticus, and Erichson may have con- 

 sequently been wrong in identifying our present Eunectes with 

 it. Be this, however, as it may, I think that the Cape de Verde 

 exponent (whether it be the true helvolus of Klug, or now for the 

 first time characterized) has at any rate a fair claim to be treated 

 as distinct from all the aberrations of its more northern ally. 

 And hence, I cannot but think, it follows that, if it indeed be 

 King's veritable helvolus, Aube was mistaken in regarding it as a 

 phasis of the sticticus. 



Fam. Dermestidse. 



Genus Deumestes. 



Linmxus, Syst. Nat. ii. 561 (1767). 



11. Dermestes vulpinus. 



Dennesles vulpinus, Fiib., Spec. lus. i. 64 (IJSl). 

 , Oliv., Ent. ii. 9. 8, pi. 1. f. 6 (1790). 



