Mr. T. V. Wollaston on the Tarphii. 371 



XXVII. — Notes on Tarphii ; with the Description of an allied Genus. 

 By T. Vernon Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S. 



Whilst preparing for the following Memoir on the various Tarphii 

 (nine in number) which have hitherto been discovered in the Canary 

 Islands, my attention was directed (in March of last year) by Mr. 

 Adam White, of the British Museum, to what seemed prima facie 

 to be a new species from Southern India, obtained by M. J. Wal- 

 house, Esq., at Coimbatoor; and finding, after a careful dissection 

 of it, that its oral organs were almost identical with those of Tar- 

 phius proper, I characterized it under the title of T. inclicus, and 

 appended it to my paper, — at the same time pointing out certain 

 structural peculiarities, of minor signification, in which it receded 

 from the typical members of the group. But on inspecting a box 

 of various Coleoptera, six months afterwards, which were collected 

 by Mr. Bowring at Poulo Penang (on the opposite side of the Bay of 

 Bengal, in the Malay Peninsula), a much larger representative — ap- 

 parently congeneric with the one from Malabar, but diverging con- 

 siderably more than it did from the normal Tarphii — induced me to 

 look more critically into the generic details of these two insects, and 

 to compare them not only inter se, but also with those of their At- 

 lantic allies. The result has been that I cannot but regard them as 

 entirely distinct from Tarphius, — the main question being, whether 

 they can themselves be generically associated. After fairly consider- 

 ing this point, I believe that such should be the case ; for, although 

 they present the radical difference of one of them having powerful 

 wings, a conspicuous scutellum, and setose eyes, whilst the other is 

 apterous, with the scutellum but just perceptible, and the eyes naked, 

 still in all their other minutiae (both external and structural) they 

 have so very much in common that I am inclined to use these dis- 

 crepancies for a no higher purpose than a mere sectional one, — 

 though, at the same time, I have thought it better to give the second 

 group a provisional name, in the event of its being considered de- 

 sirable hereafter to detach it in toto from the first. 



From Tarphius proper both of these beetles (though more especially 

 one of them) differ in their larger eyes and developed scutellum, in 

 their less abbreviated metastemum and setose legs (the hinder pair 

 of which have their coxae considerably more approximated), in the 

 expanded edges of their prothorax having no trace of a hollowing - 

 out beneath for the reception of the antennae when thrown backward 

 in a state of repose, and in the terminal joint of their palpi being 



