332 
antennae" as a generic character of Automolus, and Macleay 
makes "antennae eight-jointed" the essential character of his 
second section of J/i'paretrus. As I have already remarked, 
authors have so obviously loeen in the habit of assuming it un- 
necessary to count the joints carefully in more than one of an 
aggregate (of Australian Melolonthides) of evidently closely 
allied species, that there is no reason whatever for deciding 
against the identity of two generic names merely because the 
insects they are applied to have antennae differing in the 
number of joints And, in the case of the species under discus- 
sion, the further consideration must not be overlooked that 
they have antennae of which the stipes is extremely short and 
difficult to examine. In the present case the really reliable 
distinction of most of the species included by Macleay in his 
second section of JAijaretruH from all of those which he places 
in the first section is to be found in the structure of the front 
tibiae — which have two adjacent external teeth close to the 
apex, and one (a very small one) close to the base (the mar- 
gin of the tibiae between them being straight or all but 
straight) — a structure which I have seen in no Liparetroid 
species that is not obviously a close ally of these insects (e.g., 
Automolus (Liimretrus) povtrus, Blanch.). That structure 
is assigned by Burmeister to the front tibiae of Automolus: 
ana the assignment to it of nine- jointed antennae need occa- 
sion no difficulty in associating it with species having 
similar tibial structure and eight- jointed antennae, because on 
the one hand Burmeister might be almost excusable if he 
miscounted the joints of such obscure antennae, and, on the 
other hand, at least one of the species before me with the 
tibial structure indicated above, has nine- jointed antennae. 
As regards Burmeister's species (A. angustulus), the 
description is in general certainly suggestive of my Auto- 
molus (Liparetrus) alpirola. I am, however, conhdent in 
saying that the antennae of the latter have only eipht joints, 
and I have not met with it, nor seen it, from Tasmania. 
These considerations combined lead me to the opinion that 
A. angustulus, Burm., is a species that I have not seen, and 
which has not been redesciibed by any author. T regard 
Automolus as a valid genus. 
