318 



the absence of wings for flying. In 1879 Heer Haag-Rutenberg 

 characterised two new genera for Australian Cistelidcs — Lisa and 

 Ismarus — but without any statement whether they belong to the 

 section with simple or apically bilid mandibles. The descriptions 

 of these genera are most unsatisfactory {e.g., implying that the 

 maxillary palpi have only three joints, and in one place calling 

 the labrum of Ismariis " abgerundet," and in another "gerade"). 

 I am inclined to hazard a guess that Ismarus is a synonym of 

 Metistete. Lisa is characterised at some length, but without the 

 mention of any character that strikes me as really valuable for 

 distinction among allied Australian forms, and the author at the 

 end of his diagnosis remarks that the genus is distinguished by 

 the large apical joint of its maxillary palpi, its " kissenartig 

 gewolbte" prothorax, and its long legs and antennae. I find some 

 or all of these characters in species before me, but I am quite 

 unable to regard them as generic, unless one makes a new genus 

 for nearly every species of the group. In the description of the 

 species on which Lisa is founded (L. singularis) there is, however, 

 mention of two characters which appear to me much more likely 

 to be workable for generic distinction than any of those the 

 author calls generic. These are the presence of a dilatation in 

 the middle of the inner margin of the front tibiae (said to be a 

 male cliaracter — probably correctly, I think) and of a foveate 

 sulcus near the lateral margin of the elytra. I And each of these 

 characters (apparently even in a more developed form than in 

 the type) in several species before me, and AllecuJa elongata, 

 Macl., presents the latter of them, but I have not seen them 

 both in the same specimen — perhaps because I do not possess a 

 male of a species having the elytral sulcus. I incline to think 

 that the Australian species of the Cistelidce allied to Allecula can 

 be satisfactorily divided into genera only by their sexual charac- 

 ters, for which division our knowledge of species is as yet 

 insuflicient. My conclusion, therefore, is that the first genus 

 characterised for them (Homotrysis) may stand as against 

 Allecula, and I am able to point out that Metistete is apterous, 

 and therefore distinguishable from Homotrysis, while it seems 

 that the characters assigned to Hyhrenia and Ismarus are shared 

 by numerous forms incapable of being considered as strictly 

 congeneric (although it is probable enough that when both sexes 

 of a large number of Northern forms are known there may aj)pear 

 good reason for retaining those names and re-characterising 

 them). 



Among the Cistelidw of this group in my collection there are 

 several species that it would be quite impossible to associate with 

 any of the genera mentioned above on account of complete 

 difference in facies, although I have not been able to satisfy 



