]8!W.] ■ 183 



OjST some new INDIAN SISTJERIDM AND A NOTE ON HISTER 

 EUGISTRIUS, LEW. 



BY G. LEWIS, F.L.S. 



The genus Niponius was founded in 1885 on four species from 

 Japan and published in the Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., iii, p. 333. I then 

 surmised that it was only reasonable to believe that other species 

 would eventually be discovered in the Oriental region, and now two 

 have been brought home by Dr. H. E. Andrewes fi-om India, where 

 they were captured by Mr. T, E. D. Bell in the Province of Kanara 

 on the west coast. Dr. Andrewes says that " Kanara is a large dis- 

 trict covered with dense jungle, some of it evergreen, with good hio-h 

 forest in many parts. A portion of it is on the edge of the Deccan 

 plain, 2000 feet above the sea," and adds that his friend, Mr. Bell, 

 " has collected principally at Tellarpur, and generally along the 

 northern border of the district." This is just the kind of country 

 for the most interesting entomophagous beetles, and it can only be 

 regarded as accidental that some of the large collections made recently 

 in the east by Signer Fea, Mr. Doherty, and others have not contained 

 species of this genus, as these travellers have passed over places in 

 which the more important physical conditions are essentially the same. 

 The first of the pi-esent species is remarkable in having no elytral 

 strise, because the four Japanese species had striae so similar, that 

 the stride were found to be useless as discriminating characters. The 

 elytral sculpture is like that of a Trypeticus, and it would have been 

 a matter of interest to me, had the information been forthcoming, to 

 know whether the habits of the species led it to follow the Platypi 

 or the Tomici ; whether that is, it works for its prey diametrically into 

 the timber, or whether it seeks out the sub-cortical species only. If 

 the former it will singularly confirm, so far as the Histeridae are con- 

 cerned, m)' estimation of the value of the striae on their elytra 

 generally as guiding lines as I suggested recently in the Ann. M. JN. 

 Hist., June, 1892. Perhaps Mr. Bell will be able later to throw some 

 light on this subject. 



Nipojsrius Andeewesi, sp. n. 



Par'um elongatus, niger, nitidus, abdomine pedibusque rufis ; elytris punc- 

 tatis haicd striatis ; pygidio utrinque arcuatim sulcata. Long., 4j mm. 



Somewhat elongate, black, shining, legs and abdominal segments red. The 

 head rather densely punctate, armatui'e rather less prominent, and rather more 

 divergent than that of N. osorioceps, Lew. (I. c, fig. 12) ; the projections distinctly 

 3-carinate, with some transverse sculpture behind them ; the thorax about as broad 



