554 Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston on the 



castaneous, hue), which at first sight appears to be per- 

 fectly bald, but which when viewed beneath a high magni- 

 fying power will be seen to be very minutely and spar- 

 ingly sericeous ; for its rostrum (which is just appreciably 

 widened towards the apex) being elongated and slender in 

 the female sex; for its antennas being implanted into the 

 latter considerably behind the middle ; for its rather por- 

 rected head and depressed eyes; for the sharpness, and 

 fineness, of its sculpture ; for its limbs (particularly the 

 hinder legs) being somewhat short, its club rather narrow, 

 and its third tar sal joint bilobed; for its prothorax and 

 metasternum being a good deal lengthened; and for the 

 first and second segments of its abdomen (the former of 

 which, in the male sex, has, apparently, a large and 

 rounded tubercle in the centre) being separated from each 

 other by a fo'-arcuated line. Its prothorax is free from 

 a longitudinal groove ; and its elytra have their stride 

 nearly simple, and the interstices somewhat transversely- 

 reticulated. 



63. MESITES (Schonherr, Gen. et Spec. Cure. iv. 1043. 

 1838). A very careful examination of the various species 

 from the Madeiran, Canarian, and Cape- Verde archi- 

 pelagos, which I have hitherto referred to Mesites, has 

 convinced me that they connot properly be admitted into 

 that group as represented by its European members, of 

 which the M. pallidipennis is the universally-acknow- 

 ledged type ; and therefore I have no choice but to restrict 

 Mesites to the particular insects (namely the M. pallidi- 

 pennis and cunipes, and the more recently enunciated 

 M. aquitanus) which it was originally intended to embrace, 

 the M. Tardii, of western Europe, belonging manifestly 

 to one of the Atlantic types. 



As thus understood, Mesites may be said to differ from 

 its more immediate allies (comprised in the two following 

 genera) in its body being more parallel, cylindrical, and 

 convex, as well as somewhat more shining; in its pro- 

 thorax being more strictly oblong (instead of subtriangu- 

 lar) ; in its head being more incrassated, and with the 

 eyes wider apart ; in its male rostrum being shorter, and 

 relatively more robust and linear, it being less appre- 

 ciably widened at the insertion of the antennas ; in the 

 latter being much thicker and more abbreviated, particu- 

 larly as regards their scape (which is likewise more out- 

 wardly curved) ; in its funiculus (the second joint of which 



