514 Prof. Westvvood's Descriptions of 



The remarkable width of the head of this insect renders it at 

 once distinct from all the other species of the genus. It is black 

 and slightly glossy, short and broad in its form, the prothorax 

 and head being of nearly equal width, the hind part of the head 

 being as wide as the front part of the proihorax. The general 

 surface of the body is delicately punctured, but the hind part of 

 the head, several spaces on the pronotum, and the slight sulca- 

 tions of the elytra, are more strongly punctured. The head has 

 the posterior angles behind the eyes prominent, but rounded oflP; in 

 front of the eyes the sides of the head are gradually narrowed, 

 the anterior angles being obliquely truncated; the disc of the head, 

 near the fore margin, having two elevated tubercles near the base 

 of the mandibles, which are porrected, as long as the head, sickle- 

 shaped, and not furnished with any teeth on the inside ; the front 

 of the head is acutely angulated and deflexed. The prothorax is 

 quite transverse and widest near the anterior margin, the fore angles 

 being slightly rounded off, the hinder portion of the lateral margin 

 being nearly straight, and the posterior angles acute and slightly 

 narrower than the base of the elytra. The disc of the pronotum 

 has several slight impressions. The elytra near the basal angles 

 are acute, the base being scarcely narrower than the central part ; 

 they are marginated at the sides, and each has the disc impressed 

 with several slight sulci ; they are very convex on the disc, and 

 rounded behind. 'J'he anterior tibiae have the apical external 

 angle produced to a sharp slightly curved spine ; they are destitute 

 of teeth on the outer margin, (a very slight tooth appears to be 

 indicated in the drawing on the left fore tibia, which is absent in 

 the right one,) and the four posterior tibiae have a small acute 

 tooth near the middle of the outer margin. 



This species might at first sight be (and indeed has been) con- 

 sidered as the male of the insect which I described in these Trans- 

 actions (2nd Series, vol. iii. p. 220) from a single female specimen in 

 the British Museum Collection, taken at Moreton Bay, under the 

 name of Dorcus Pelorides ; but on carefully comparing Dr. Howitt's 

 drawing with the type of that sptcies, I feel satisfied that the two 

 insects are specifically distinct. I therefore take the opportunity 

 of adding a figure and details of Dorcus Pelorides (PI. XXI. fig. 2), 

 in order that the differences between the two insects may be at 

 once perceived. These differences appear to me to be such as 

 would not be exhibited by the opposite sexes of one and the same 

 species. This is especially the case with the shape of the head, 

 the rather deep semicircular emargination of its front margin, the 

 outline of the prothorax, rather broader at its posterior angles than 



