338 Mr. A. Murray on Coleoptera from Old Calabar. 



cuneato medio instructo; elytris sulcatis, sulcis pimctatis; 



tibiis anticis et mediis externe dentatis. 

 Long. If lin., lat. | lin. 



Deep chestnut claret-coloured. Head and thorax finely, 

 faintly, and sparingly punctate, the punctures elongate ; the 

 former hollowed longitudinally. Thorax wedge-shaped, truncate 

 both before and behind, the anterior angles slightly projecting, 

 the sides with three very slight angles or prominences, the most 

 prominent not far from the posterior angle; the disk deeply ex- 

 cised longitudinally, with a narrow wedge-shaped patch inserted 

 in the middle, the point of the wedge directed backwards. Scu- 

 tellum small, ovate, projecting. Elytra sulcate, the sulci being 

 rows of punctate striae ; three (or four, if we reckon the sutural 

 line as one) alternate interstices on each side are a little more 

 raised than those between them, the outermost the least so : 

 shoulders somewhat prominent and paler than the rest of the 

 body : sides turned down and in, and with the margin marked 

 off by a fine stria. Underside finely, faintly, and sparingly 

 punctate. Legs paler than the body ; anterior tibiae with three 

 distinct teeth on the external side — one large one at the distal 

 angle and two together about the middle ; the middle tibise with 

 two blunt teeth about the middle. 



Two specimens, from the Rev. W. C. Thomson. 



This is a well-marked species. The patch let in in the midst 

 of the thorax is a distinct well-defined narrow wedge. The 

 dentation on the tibise is another good distinguishing character. 

 All the species seem to have more or less of a groove on the outer 

 side of the tibise, apparently for the reception of the tarsi when 

 at rest. In the European species this is scarcely observable. It 

 goes no further than a slight broadening and roughening of its 

 outer side. It is at the upper termination of this groove that 

 the two middle teeth in this species occur. The only other 

 species in which I have observed a tendency to this dentation is 

 an undescribed Indian one (highly polished and with an oblong 

 quadrangular patch on its thorax). 



Hectarthrum, Newm. 

 I. Hectarthrum gigas, Fab. Syst. El. ii. p. 92. 



Fabricius's description is too meagre to allow us to be certain 

 whether he had a species distinct from curtipes in his eye when 

 he described this ; all that we can be sure of is that it was either 

 curtipes or something very near it. I think there are two spe- 

 cies which answer to his description, and which are sufficiently 

 close to be confounded — one broader and larger than the other, 

 and it I consider to be the gigas of Fabricius. 



Two or three specimens received. 



