by C. N. Barker. 107 
METALLICA sp. ? 
This is a splendid little insect, black with metallic purplish-red 
elytra. A single example was found by me on the 14th June, 1907, 
dead on a leaf in my garden at Malvern. It must either be a 
straggler from the north-eastern fauna, or an extraordinary rare 
insect. It is evidently allied to M. purpuripennis, Chaud. but differs 
from the description in many essential details. It has, unfortunately, 
lost some of its members. 
Length about 9 mm. 
PLAGIOPYGA TRANSVAALENSIS, sp. Nov. 
Head, prothorax, palpi and beneath rich chestnut red ; mandibles 
black. Antenne: first three joints red like the head, glabrous, the 
remaining joints ferruginous and pubescent. Elytra black, opaque, 
but showing an underlying reddish tinge in very strong light; 
epipleure red. Legs reddish; the femora except the knees a shade 
lighter. Head: epistome elongate; labrum broader than long, 
truncate; vertex smooth, without punctures. Prothorax slightly 
broader than long; lateral margins gently rounded from apex to above 
middle, thence gradually narrowed to the rounded basal angle; disc 
convex finely plicate, and with a median groove; margins briefly 
recurved and somewhat rugose within. LElytra depressed, finely 
striated, intervals plane. 
Length 10 mm. Width 4 mm. 
Hab. Pilgrim’s Rest, Transvaal. Collected by A. Galloway. 
More depressed and less elongate than P. cyclogona, Chaud. The 
colour of the elytra different to any of those previously described from 
S. Africa. 
DEMETRIAS NATALENSIS, Chaud, and PELiocypas NATALENSIS, Chaud. 
(in litt.). 
I cannot refrain from referring to the confusion caused by the use 
of the same name for these two closely allied insects. In colour and 
general appearance they are almost identical; in size alone is there 
any differentiation (and that is only as 44} mm. is to 6 mm.) so far as 
the outer skeleton is concerned. The generic characters of Demetrias 
and Peliocypas only differ in that the former has the paraglosse a 
little longer and the latter mwch longer than the ligula. Where the 
facies and habits are the same, as they are in the case of these two 
insects, the generic characters appear very insuflicient to justify their 
separation, 
