X.—On Some Rare Beetles in the Barker Collection of the Durban 
Museum, with descriptions of new species, Part I, 
by 
C. N. Barker, F.E.S. 
HIS collection of Coleoptera includes a considerable number of 
unique specimens which have remained as such after the lapse of 
many years in spite of every endeavour to obtain further examples. 
I am fully alive to the inadvisability of describing species from single 
examples and have long refrained from doing so, but the evident 
rarity of some of them, which, on account of the opening up of the 
country and consequent destruction of their favourite haunts, is likely 
to increase until they are quite lost sight of, has induced me to take 
the present course. An additional reason for describing these rarities 
is that other collectors may have the luck to come across specimens of 
them, the value of which they might be quite oblivious of had they 
not the descriptions and history to refer to. 
I have to thank Dr. L. Péringuey for his great kindness in 
comparing my types with insects in his collection and that of the 
South African Museum. Indeed, without his help in this respect, I 
should not have felt justified in making this my first contribution to 
descriptive classificatory work. 
My thanks are also due to the Rev. J. O'Neil, 8.J., of Salisbury, 
Rhodesia, for kindly lending me some valuable unique species from 
his collection for comparison. As two amongst these prove to be new, 
I have included descriptions of them below. With these exceptions, 
all the types are contained in the collection of the Durban Museum. 
Famity CARABIDA. 
SuB-FAMILY CARABINA. 
HiLetus oxyaonus, Chaud. 
A small, black beetle having the appearance of a Harpalid, but 
with powerfully developed broad mandibles and geniculate antenne. 
The two examples in the collection were taken by me in wet alluvium, 
under river weeds, at the Umblatuzana River, near Malvern, in 
November, 1900. I have come across no further specimens in the 
course of many years collecting both at this spot and other fayourable 
localities, 
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