MELYEID^. 145 



MELYRID^. 



MALACHIUS, Fabiicius. 



M. barnevillei, Puton (IVIonog. des Malachiides, pp. 55, 56). 

 Metallic-green, the mouth parts (the apical joint of the maxillary palpi 

 excepted), the anterior portion of the head, the basal joints of the 

 antennte laterally and beneath, the anterior tarsi, the anterior tibife on 

 the inner side towards the apex, a small spot at the apex of the anterior 

 femora (and sometimes another on that of the intermediate pair), the 

 intermediate tarsi in part, and the apical margin of each ventral 

 segment, testaceous or flavous : the upper surface very finely pubescent 

 and also thickly clothed with long, erect, blackish hairs. Tarsal claws 

 very little longer than the membrane. 



Male with the first joint of the antennae much thickened, and joints 

 2-9 more or less serrate, the latter flavous at the inner apical angle. 

 Each elytron with a narrow transverse impression at the apex. 



Female with the antennae shorter and darker, the basal joint not 

 dilated, and the others very feebly serrate. Length i-ih mm. 



Hunstanton, Norfolk, on the sandhills on Convolvuhis flowers in 

 June: taken by Mr. H. J. Thouless and recorded as British by Mr. 

 Champion (Ent. Mo. Mag. xli. (2 Ser. xv.i.) 1905, 15), from whose notes 

 the above description . is taken. M. barnevillei forms the type of 

 Mulsant's subgenvxs Hypojitilus, distinguished by the narrow transverse 

 excavation at the apex of the elytra in the male, and the strongly 

 developed membrane of the tarsal claws in both sexes. On the Continent 

 the species inhabits the Basses or Hautes Alps, the Pyrenees, etc., and 

 would hardly have been expected to occur in Norfolk. 



M. vulneratus, Ab. (Bull. Ac. Marseille, 1900, sep. p. 18). 

 Elongate, rather narrow, dull brassy green, the front of the head 

 flavous, the apex of the elytra rufous or flavous : clothed with a fine 

 cinereous pubescence, the elytra without setse. Antennae very similarly 

 formed in tlie two sexes, a little longer in the male than in the female, 

 the basal joint not dilated. Elytra at the base not wider than the 

 thorax, subparallel in the male, widened towards the apex in the female ; 

 the apex in the male rufous, very deeply, transversely excavate, the 

 upper and lower lobes horizontal, about equal in length, the upper lobe 

 with a large, toothlike, emarginate prominence on the inner («utural) 

 edge beneath, above which is a setiform appendage : the apex in the 

 female broadly fulvous, shining, transversely depressed. L. 4^ mm. 



Sheerness ; taken by Mr. Champion in company with M.viridis. F. 

 (which it much resembles) in 1809 and introduced by him as British 

 (Ent. Mo. Mag. xli. (2 Ser. xvi.) 1905, 66) as M. sjnnosus, Er., the 

 record being cori-ected by him to M. vuhieratus, Ab. [I.e. 88). The two 

 last-named species are, as Mr. Champion remarks, very similar, M. 

 vulneratus differing from J/, spinosus in its nazTower elongate form, 

 the more slender antennae and the absence of the erect blackish hairs on 

 the elytra : according to Mulsant, however, these blackifeh hairs are 



K 



