548 Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston on the 



is a native of Madagascar, and has been communicated by 

 Mr. Pascoe. It is rather larger in size than the other 

 members of the immediate department into which I have 

 admitted it ; nevertheless it agrees with them in its surface 

 being dark, closely sculptured, and opake, and more or less 

 besmeared with dirty, mud-like scales. In other respects 

 it is remarkable for its rostrum being broad and depressed, 

 channeled down the middle, and with the eyes exceedingly 

 prominent ; for its prothorax being appreciably narrower 

 than the elytra, a good deal rounded at the sides, and very 

 deeply constricted behind the apex ; for its elytra (which, 

 when viewed beneath the microscope, are most minutely 

 and very sparingly pubescent) having their somewhat large 

 punctures arranged in longitudinal rows, but scarcely in 

 stride ; and for its antennae and legs being much thickened, 

 the former moreover having their funiculus-joints very 

 closely pressed together, or compact, and their club narrow 

 and not at all abrupt. 



55. PSILOSOMUS (nov. gen.}. The present genus is 

 remarkable amongst the Cossonidce for the dark and opake 

 (yet bald and densely punctured) surface of the somewhat 

 CW#we?r-shaped insect for the reception of which it is 

 proposed, and which has been communicated to me by 

 Mr. Janson as a native of Ceylon, and by Mr. G. Lewis, 

 who captured it at Paulo Penang, in the Malay peninsula. 

 And it is further distinguished by the comparative large- 

 ness of its prothorax, by its widely-sulcated elytra, and by 

 its first abdominal segment (which is more conspicuously 

 separated from the second one than is usual in this family) 

 having in the male sex a deep rounded depression in the 

 centre which is curiously filled up w r ith fulvescent pile. 

 Its rostrum is rather short, broad, and subparallel, though 

 a little longer in the males than in the females, with 

 the antennae inserted at about the middle point ; and its 

 legs (which are robust and a good deal thickened, especially 

 as regards their anterior femora) have their tarsi consider- 

 ably developed, with the ultimate joint elongate, and 

 furnished with powerful claws. 



I have little doubt that the affinities of Psilosomus are 

 with such forms as Coprodema and Exodema, from Japan, 

 in which the elytra are costate, and the body (although 

 very much smaller) is equally opake and densely sculptured. 

 Nevertheless in both of those groups the surface, instead 



