Genera and Species o/Coleoptcra. 27 



M ACROTOM A [ Prionida}]. 

 Servillc, Ann. do Soc. Ent. dc Fr. i. p. 137. • 



Macrotoma servilia. 



3/. fiisco-castanoa, subnitida; prothoraco transvorso, lateribus snbmnticis, 

 nntice tridentatis, postici^ unispiiiosis; scutello postice rotiindato ; oly- 

 tris conuexo-punctatis, hand vorniiculatis ; abdomiue glabrato, polito. 



Ilab. Australia (i\[olboiirue). 



Dark chestuut-bro\\m, siibnitid ; head coarsely punctured ; antennae 

 lonp^er than half the lenfjth of the body, all the joints more or less 

 puuftured, the third nearly as long as the two next together ; prothorax 

 sliortly transverse, irregularly and coarsely punctured, the middle por- 

 tion of it^ sides straight, but gradually diverging to the base, nearly 

 meeting, anteriorly with three teeth, posteriorly with a spine, at the base 

 of which are two or three short teeth ; scutellum rounded posteriorly ; 

 (dytra much broader than the base of the prothorax, the sides slightly 

 rounded, closely punctured, the punctures becoming coarser .and more 

 or less connected, although never vermiculate, as they approach the 

 suture and base, this part also being darker or somewhat pitchy; 

 abdomen and legs pale chestnut, highly polished ; metastemum thinly 

 pilose, prostemum coarsely punctured. Length 18 lines. 



The only described Australian Prionid that approaches this is 

 Hermerlus hnpar of N"ewman, which, iyiter alia, differs in its hairy 

 prothorax and the thick mass of woolly pubescence which clothes the 

 abdomen. I have not adopted the genus, however, from the im- 

 possibility of seeing how it is to be separated from some forms of 

 Macrotoma. There are several undescribed species from Australia, 

 differing from each other in a not very tangible manner, but mostly 

 having the sides of the prothorax more denticulate. I fear, how- 

 ever, that the amount of denticulation is very often, in this family, 

 a character varying according to the individual. In the specimen 

 just described, the two posterior teeth of the anterior angle of the 

 prothorax are distinctly bifid on the right side, but are entire on the 

 left. So in Mr. Newman's genus Cnemojyiites*, the teeth on the 

 protibioe, in a specimen of an undescribed species in the British 

 Museum, are five on one side, and three on the other ; in an allied 

 species the intermediate tibia? are also toothed, and in my Malhdon 

 figuratum all the tibiae. The Prionidae, as they are constituted at 

 present, appear to be a very unsatisfactory family, containing several 

 anomalous genera, and others which are extremely difficult to limit. 



* Mr. Newman describes C')iemoplifes thus : " Protibiis excncrvatis, extus spi- 

 voais " (Entom. p. 351) ; and, in addition to C. ednlh (unknown to me), refers to 

 it Prionus spinicollis, Macleay, which has aU the tibiae spined, and which I cannot 

 separate from Macrotoma. It is, in fact, very iiear my Macrotoma gemella. 



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