424 Prof. J. Wood-Mason on a new 



dense, somewhat appressed, golden-brown pubescence with a 

 plush-like lustre, especially on the pronotuni, where in places 

 it exhibits a tendency to become shaggy. Pronotum gibbous, 

 its posterior margin strongly sinuous, its sides angulate- 

 rotundate,andits anterior margin sinuous, with the lateralangles 

 slightly produced and subacute. Scutellum moderate, broader 

 than long, very slightly overlapped at base by the broadly 

 rounded median lobe of the pronotum, longitudinally roof- 

 shaped, its sides next the elytra very slightly arcuate. Elytra 

 short, leaving the posterior half of the propygidium exposed, 

 constructed much as in Pe/?eronoto, tolerably thickly but irregu- 

 larly punctate * between the hairs of the pubescence. Pygi- 

 dium scarcely visible from above, very convex, its basal two 

 thirds or thereabouts directed straight backwards, the remain- 

 der downwards. Abdomen with six visible ventral somites, 

 of which the first four are very short and closely packed, 

 together scarcely exceeding the fifth in length ; the first three 

 of them longitudinally somewhat roof-shaped and angularly 

 emarginate in the middle of the hinder margin ; the sixth with 

 a rounded emargination in its posterior border, which is in- 

 completely filled by the apex of the pygidium. Mesosternum 

 Bim})le. Presternum with a slight postcoxal projection. 



Fore legs short and very robust ; the outer edge of the tibisB 

 strongly tridentate in characteristic Ruteline fashion ; the 

 terminal joint of the tarsi enlarged and strongly curved, with 

 a large, blunt, dark brown tubercle on the inner concave cur- 

 vature ; the penultimate joint produced at the apex to a hard, 

 blunt, dark brown point, against which the enlarged, sharp- 

 edged, and simple outer unguis folds so as to form an efficient 

 prehensile subchela. The four posterior legs much less robust, 

 the intermediate pair as much inferior in robustness to the pos- 

 terior as these are to the anterior ; the outer ungues in all 

 deeply cleft. On all the six femora, along the inner margins 

 of the simple subcylindrical four posteriar tibiaj, and at the free 

 edges of the ventral thoracic somites, the pubescence is deve- 

 loped into long and shaggy light-brown hair. 



* Under a 3-inch objective the puncta show themselves as rather large 

 and shallow oval depressions, in the middle of each of which is a small, 

 dark brown papilla with a pore or pit at its summit. Can these per- 

 forated papillae be the mouths of skin-glands, from which an offensive 

 secretion is poured out as a defence ? 



Since the above was written, I have examined specimens (of both sexes 

 in one case) of the two species of Peperonota represented in the national 

 collection ; and I find that the elytra in all exhibit a sculpture of the same 

 kind, but differing in matters of detail according to species. In con- 

 nexion with the above suggestion as to their possible, if not probable, 

 nature, it is a significant fact that none of the papillae give insertion to 

 hairs. 



