THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 9 
Prosternum excavated. - - ByRsoPIDE. 
Gular margin not prominent; mentum 
large, concealing the mandibles, 
which are not scarred at the tip. BracHycrripz 
b. Tarsi dilated, usually with a brush of 
hair beneath. 
Mandibles with deciduous tip, leaving 
a scar. - - - - OTIORHYNCHIDS. 
Mandibles simple, usually pincer- 
shaped. - - . - .CURCULIONIDE. 
B. Antenne with eleven separate joints. - BRENTHIDE. 
Concerning Amycteride and Brachyceridz but little need 
be said: they are very peculiar and easily-recognized forms, 
not represented in our Fauna. 
The first is Australian: the antenne are slender and 
geniculated; the beak short and stout, deeply emarginate 
at tip, alike in both sexes; the buccal opening is very 
large, and the cavity is filled almost completely by the 
mandibles, which are convex, hairy on the greater part of the 
front surface, deflexed, deeply concave beneath; the gular 
margin is thickened and prominent, so that a deep cavity is 
seen between the gula and the mandibles, in which the 
mentum and oral organs are concealed from view; the eyes 
are small, and nearly round in some, narrowed beneath in 
others; the front coxz are contiguous; the prosternum very 
short; the elytra are connate, and extend far over the flanks, 
so that the side pieces—both of the mesothorax and meta- 
thorax—are concealed; the dorsal segments of the abdomen 
are membranous, except the last, which is very large, 
corneous, and convex, more so in the male than in the 
female,—in the former it is truncate behind, exposing a 
semicircular 8th segment, from under which protrudes 
(Psalidura) a very powerful and complex genital armature, 
consisting of a large pair of forceps, conical-obtuse, 
punctured, and hairy, under which, and seen only from 
below, is a pair of transverse, thin, polished, corneous plates, 
also meeting on the median line; between them and the 
_ forceps is a large deep cavity; the ventral segments are 
scarcely less singular; the lst and 2nd segments large, flat, 
connate, united by a sinuate suture; 3rd and 4th very short, 
separated by deeply-excavated straight sutures; 5th much 
Cc 
