460 Mr. W. H. Benson on the possible Identitij 



stout form portrayed in the ' Trans. Ent. Soc./ where the an- 

 terior portion of P. Parriarms is deficient in slenderness, ex- 

 hibiting a shortness and breadth in the prothorax and front of 

 the head which are far from being characteristic. 



Thunberg's characters of the head of P. lineatus are, " Caput 

 suborbiculato-angulatum, punctis depressis, insequale margi- 

 natum.'^ In the description of P. Parrianus the shght concavity 

 of the centre of the head is recorded^ as well as the scarcely 

 raised margin of the organ, which is said to be subelevated pos- 

 teriorly. In reality, the hinder margin will be found to be con- 

 siderably elevated when compared with the rest of the head; 

 and a double prominence, separated by a longitudinal impres- 

 sion, and unnoticed in the figure or description of either species, 

 will be evident on examination. The surface of the head is 

 closely punctate; and a transverse row of indistinctly formed 

 impressions runs across the cavity between the eyes, the central 

 one being deepest^ and placed at the termination of a slightly 

 impressed sulcus running back from the emargination of the 

 clypeus. In Thunberg^s figure, the shading of the head ex- 

 presses not unaptly the posterior marginal elevation, which is 

 not well represented in the engraving of P. Parrianus. 



A sure token of the carelessness of Thunberg^s artist, in cer- 

 tain details, will be observed in the forward position given to 

 the eyes, at the sides of the clypeus, instead of at the wide part 

 of the head further back, in the great size of the scutellum, and 

 in the form of the apices of the elytra, — characters which we 

 may feel assured are non-existent in any species of Pausstis. 

 Westwood, in p. 627 of the 2nd vol. of the 'Linnsean Transac- 

 tions,' admitted that P. lineatus was " indifferently figured," 

 and, in p. 648 of the first volume, stated that he was not con- 

 vinced that the species ought not to be inserted in the first sec- 

 tion of the genus, viz. with a sub-bipartite thorax. Actually the 

 thorax in Thunberg's figure has much similarity to the appear- 

 ance presented to the unarmed eye in P. Parrianus ; and the 

 correctness of Westwood's first impression is materially strength- 

 ened by the circumstance that the anterior portion of the pro- 

 thorax has the outline observable in the 1st section, and not 

 known to exist in a single species of the 2nd section, whether 

 African or Asiatic. The shading of the central part of the pro- 

 thorax of P. lineatus is very imperfect; and a slight depth added 

 to it would assimilate that part to P. Parrianus ; and would cor- 

 respond with Thunberg's description of an apparently bipartite 

 prothorax — " Thorax insequalis, lateribus utrinque unispinosis, 

 antice elevatus; postice rotundatus, foveis in medio 3 impressis," 

 these three impressions answering to the two pits formed by the 

 front part of the raised W, to which the sculpture of the disk is 



