RHYNCHOPUORA. 415 



closely and rather strongly punctured, with an obscure dorsal carina ; 

 elytra with deeply punctured striae, interstices somewhat rugose, c! 

 with short rigid hairs ; abdomen fuscous ; legs and auteunte ferruginous ; 

 episterna of metasternum covered with whitish scales, which, however, 

 are only apparent in fresh specimens. L. '2- 7 mm. 



On broom and furze ; also on low plants such as clover, Ononis, &c. ; occasionally 

 found by sweeping herbage ; loca', but not uncommon where it occurs ; Croydon, 

 Riddlesdowu, Clay-gate, Forest Hill, Ashtead, Birch Wood, Tottenham, Darenth, 

 Bushey Park, Bearsted, Dartford, Sheerness, (Iravesend ; Folkestone; Eastbourne; 

 Portsmouth district; Plymouth; Swansea; Llangolleu ; Monmouthshire, freely; 

 Scarborough ; Scotland, rare, Tweed, Forth and Moray districts. 



KYLESINUS, Fabricius. 



This genus contains about forty species, which are very widely dis- 

 tributed ; eleven are found in Europe, and the remainder occur in North 

 and South America, Ceylon, the Australian region, &c. ; four inhabit 

 Britain, one of which, If. fraxini, is among the most abundant of our 

 wood-boring beetles, and sometimes does considerable damage to young 

 ash trees ; the species vary considerably in size and may be distin- 

 guished by having the funiculus of the antennae seven-jointed and the 

 club of the same compressed and oblong ; the episterna of the meta- 

 sternum are broad and the anterior and intermediate coxae are more or 

 less broadly distant ; the eyes are entire and transversely elongate and 

 the tarsi have the third joint evidently longer than the preceding. 



The life history of all our species has been described by various 

 authors : that of H. fraxini has, however, been more fully discussed 

 than the others ; all Entomologists who have ever worked the bark of 

 dead ash trees are well acquainted with the formation of its burrows, 

 which consist of a deep parent gallery and a large number of larval gal- 

 leries which run off at right angles to it, and are quite adjacent to and 

 sometimes even overlap one another at apex, forming a ramification of 

 galleries that once seen can never again be mistaken ; Dr. Chapman 

 has given an account of the operations of the species in the Entomolo- 

 gist's Monthly Magazine, vol. v. p. 121, with further notes as to the 

 economy of H. crenatus and H. vittatus ; the latter insect attacks the 

 elm (rarely the ash), and the two former, as well as H. oleiperda, attack 

 the ash ; in other countries, the latter species, as its name implies, is 

 mostly attached to the olive tree ; the most abundant of the species is 

 H. fra.i'ini, which in May attacks recently fallen ash trees; the beetles 

 bore very rapidly into the bark, and usually before the female beetle 

 has quite buried itself in the bark the male arrives, and in a few days 

 the two beetles are to be found rapidly extending the gallery in both 

 directions from the aperture of entry ; as a rule most insects on their 

 escape from the pupal state contain their eggs ready to be laid and 

 requiring only fertilization, but in these, as in many of the more active 

 Coleoptera t the eggs are developed after attaining the perfect state ; in 



