254 



CURCULIONID^. 



Moniz even in the town itself, beneath rotten planks lying in his 

 garden. It is very closely allied to the European P. spadioc, of which 

 indeed I am far from satisfied that it is more than a geographical 

 state. 



710. Phlceophagus caulium. 



Phlceophagus caulium, Wott., Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. v. 370 (1861). 

 , Id., Cat. Can. Col. 270 (1864). 



Habitat Canarienses (Lanz., Fuert.), truncos ramosque EupTiorbiarum 

 emortuos perforans. 



Observed hitherto only in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the two 

 eastern islands of the Canarian archipelago, where it is locally abun- 

 dant within the dead stems and branches of the various Euphorbias. 



711. Phlceophagus laurineus. 



Phlceophagus laurineus et affinis, Woll., Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. v. 371, 



373 (1861). 

 , Id., Cat. Can. Col 271 (1864). 



Habitat Canarienses (Ten., Gom., Palma, Hierro), sub cortice laxo 

 prsecipue laurorum in subinferioribus et saepius intermediis 

 occurrens. 



Although by no means certain that the P. laurineus and affinis 

 may not be, after all, as I originally assumed, specifically distinct ; 

 yet the recent inspection of more extensive material than I formerly 

 possessed, including a considerable series from Gomera which are 

 strictly intermediate between the two, has convinced me that it will 

 be safer to regard them as but states of a single species consequent 

 perhaps on their attachment to particular trees and plants, some of 

 which (as, for instance, the Laurels and Euphorbias) are widely 

 different in their nature and properties. So long as the affinis 

 appeared to be exclusively of Euphorbia-infesting habits, I could 

 scarcely suppose otherwise (even though its differential characters 

 were but small and insignificant) than that it was truly distinct 

 from the more deeply sculptured and laurel-feeding P. laurineus ; 

 yet the detection of intermediate individuals in the dead wood of 

 mulberry, willow, and fig (each set presenting some just appreciable 

 feature of its own) would seem to imply that they are all of them 

 but slight and unimportant modifications of a rather plastic form 

 capable of sustaining itself under various and opposite conditions. 

 And hence I have come to the conclusion that it will be better to 

 suppress (as a species) the P. affinis, which is but one of the rather 





