140 



The almost unicolorous fulvous or yellowisli-brown colour, to- 

 gether with the non-bisiiiuate sides of the prothorax and the 

 elytra quite as strongly and closely verrucose as those of 

 r. reticulata, Marsh., will distinguish this species from all its 

 intelligibly described congeners appertaining to Dr. Chapuis' First 

 Group (of which it is a member), except P. reticulata, Marsh., 

 from which (disregarding colour) it differs (a) in sha;)e, Ijeing 

 evidently less strongly convex, and with a much more rounded 

 outline, (h) in sculpture, the close-set wart-like elevations on its 

 elytra being (not larger in area, but) more prominent than in 

 P. reticulata, and more spread over the whole surface, being well 

 defined even around the scutellum. The punctures on the disc 

 of the prothorax are individually much less distinct than in 

 P. reticulata, and are not collected into clusters as they are in 

 that species. The prosternum resembles that of P. reticulata. 



Kangaroo Island ; taken by Mr. J. G. O. Tepper. 

 P. nitidissima, sp. nov Breviter ovata ; convexa ; rufo- 

 ferruginea ; mandibulis apice, labro medio, antennis (articulis 

 basalibus 4 exceptis), linea longitudinali media maculaque 

 utrinque rotundata et in vertice et in prothorace, signaturis 

 nonnullis longitudinalibus in elytris, mesosterni metasterni- 

 que macula laterali, et genubus, nigris ; capite prothoraceque 

 minus nitidis subcoriaceis et crebrius sat subtiliter 

 punctulatis, hoc quam longiori plus duplo latiori ad latera 

 vix impresso ; scutello elytrisque nitidissimis ; illo l^evigato ; 

 elytris crebre subtiliter (quam prothorax magis subtiliter) 

 punctulatis, lineis longitudinalibus la^vigatis vix manifeste 

 notatis. Long., 5 1. ; lat., 3|- 1. 

 In the example before me the black marks on the elytra appear 

 to be fragments of three parallel longitudinal discal lines, of the 

 inner two of which there is only a short piece slightly behind the 

 base while the external one consists of a post-basal fragment, an 

 elongate median piece, and a sub-apical spot ; the short central 

 longitudinal black line with a black spot on either side of it on 

 both head and prothorax is a very distinctive character if con- 

 stant. The prothorax at its widest is nearly half again as wide 

 as across the tips of the front angles (which are well produced 

 but not very acute), and is to the greatest width of the elytra 

 about as 12 to 17 ; the sides have a distinct upturned (or 

 thickened) margin, inside which is a well defined but narrow 

 (scarcely wider than the margin itself) gutter ; the thickened 

 margin is not continued along the base, and only for a very short 

 distance along the front ; the sides diverge not very strongly and 

 almost in straight lines from the front angles almost to the base 

 and then are strongly rounded and converge to the base into 

 which they merge without a distinct angle. The punctu ration of 



