\'^ 



THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[NINTH SERIES.] 

 No. 22. OCTOBER 1919. 



XXIII. — Notes on the African and Asiatic Species o/Melyris, 

 Fab. (sensu lato), with an Account of their Sexual 

 Characters. By G. C. Champion, F.Z.S. 



This paper is based upon a study of the African and Asiatic 

 species of Melyris, Zygia, and Pseudozygia belonging to the 

 British Museum, the Hope Collection at Oxford, the Genoa 

 Museum, and the Congo Museum at Tervueren, Belgium. 

 The collections together possess upwards of 1000 specimens 

 of these insects, representing not less than 80 species, 36 of 

 "which are here described as new. Melyris, in the wide sense, 

 extends over the whole of Africa, and is abundantly repre- 

 sented in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, the British Museum 

 collection being particularly rich in material from these 

 places. Numerous peculiar forms, too, inhabit Somaliland, 

 Abyssinia, and the Cape Region. Eastward, in Arabia, 

 Mesopotamia, and Syria, and northward, in Algeria, Tunis, 

 and the Mediterranean Region, there are also a certain 

 number of representatives. The small northern forms allied 

 to M. granulata, F., are excluded from the present enumera- 

 tion, the available material addiug nothing to the account of 

 them given by Schilsky in 1897. The types of three species 

 only were to be found in the British Museum — M. nigra, F., 

 and M. monticola, and insular is, Gahan ; but amongst the ex- 

 tensive material kindly lent me by Dr. Gestro and M. Schou- 

 teden, there are many types or co-types of Reiche, Harold, 

 Gorham, and Pic, so that a certain number of the species of 

 these authors could be identified with certainty. The type 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 9. Vol. iv. 13 



