171 the British Musrum. 



•161 



Chrysonielidse. 

 ChrysomeUtes allochlamys, sp. n. (Fig. 5.) 



Elytron about 7*5 mm. long and 4"3 mm. broad ; 

 moderately convex but flattened on disc, broadly truncate 

 at base, obtuse at apex; nine lines of round rather large 

 punctures; one near the inner margin, and four pairs of 

 parallel lines, two near middle of disc, and two, close together, 

 not far from outer margin ; between the pairs of lines the 

 surface is very densely covered with punctures of the same 

 size as those in the lines. In one of the lines there are about 

 seven punctures to a mm. 



Fijr. 5. 



1-5 



ChrysomeUtes allochlamys. 19008. 



Bartonian ; Bagshot Beds, Bournemouth (J. S. Gardner). 

 Brit. Museum, 19008, with reverse. 



The type of ChrysomeUtes is C. prodromus, Heer, from the 

 Lower Lias of Switzerhmd, an insect certainly not congeneric 

 with the present spocies. But I follow Scudder in treating 

 the name as applicable to fossil Chrysomdidae of unknown 

 generic position, although it seems probable that our insect 

 should be made the type of a new genus. It has a curious 

 resemblance to Smudicoptera lianina (Ilecr), from the Lower 

 Lias of Switzerland. Heer considered Smodicoptera to be a 

 Buprcstid {Euchroma), but our species certainly cannot 

 belcjng to that family. In * Die TuM-ktenfaiina dcr Tcrtiiir- 

 gebilde von Ocningen und von Kadoboj ' (181-7), plate viii., 

 Heer undertook to illustrate the primitive or fundamental 

 pattern of a Coleo})terous elytron, and according to tliis 

 system C. allochlamys may be considered a primitive form. 

 Such a pattern persists in the modern JjptiiiotujSd, but that 

 ty[)ically differs from our fossil in liaving the rows of 

 punctures much more irregular and (especially L. uuderhn- 

 tineuta) double at least in part, while the intervals beweeu the 



