514 Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston on the 



metasternum, elongate ; their rostrum (which varies in 

 length according to the species, but which is never very 

 long) is robust and linear, though sometimes obsoletely 

 constricted towards the base ; and their third tarsal joint 

 is either slightly bilobed, or else narrow and simple. In 

 the European P. Huttoni, which must be regarded as the 

 type of the genus, as well as in the P. Zealandicum, and 

 in the two species from Chili, the second articulation of 

 the 5 -jointed funiculus is appreciably a little longer than 

 those which follow it ; but this is less evidently the case in 

 the other members of the group which have hitherto been 

 observed. The Pentarthra are somewhat peculiar in their 

 habits, attaching themselves to old planks, boards, rafters, 

 casks, &c., on the dry, and often tinder-like, wood of which 

 they appear to subsist (and that too, occasionally, when the 

 latter are even partly buried in the soil) ; a mode of life 

 which is equally indicated in (the nearly blind) Amauror- 

 rhinus, and in Hexarthrum of the true Cossonides. On this 

 account we may expect that their acquired areas of distribu- 

 tion will be found eventually to be wide ; and, in accordance 

 with this conjecture, it is a significant fact that the expo- 

 nents which have hitherto been discovered should occur in 

 countries so remote from each other as western Europe,* 



* Until quite recently I had looked upon the P. Huttoni as peculiar to 

 England, and indeed it has not as yet been recorded for any other country ; 

 but, having, a few weeks ago, received some Cossonidce from Dr. Sharp, I 

 was surprised to find that two typical examples (which were included 

 amongst them), of the "Rliyncolus Hervei" of Allard (Abeille,v. 475. 

 1869), and which appear to have been captured at Rennes, are identical 

 with my Pentarthrum Huttoni, described (fifteen years before) from 

 examples taken near Exeter. In the Munich Catalogue the department of 

 Finisterre is given as the locality for the "Rhyncolus Hervei ;" so that at 

 any rate the extreme western portion of Brittany is the only region, beyond 

 England, in which it has hitherto been observed ; and it is a significant 

 fact, from a geographical point of view, that that particular district is 

 exactly opposite to Devonshire on the southern side of the Channel. Its 

 precise places of capture in this country are, up to the present date, three, 

 namely, the vicinity of Exeter (where it was met with originally, at 

 Alphington, by my nephew, the Rev. H. W. Hutton) ; Teignmouth (where 

 on two or three different occasions I have myself found it), and Plymouth 

 (where it was detected by Mr. Reading). Apart from its many other 

 characters, the fact of its funiculus being composed of only five joints 

 ought certainly to have prevented it from being re- described as a Rliyn- 

 colnsin which that organ has invariably seven articulations ; but the 

 slovenly manner in which continental entomologists are apt to mount their 

 specimens, every limb and joint being hopelessly concealed beneath, will 

 perhaps explain a blunder which is nevertheless utterly unpardonable. It 

 is scarcely less fragrant however than the similar miscalculation of the 

 funiculus- joints in Cheer orrliinus, which has resulted in that genus having 

 been assigned hitherto to a subfamily with which it has next to nothing in 



