cxviii Mr. E. Newman's Descriptions 



puncture appears to emit a short hair : the basal portion of the elytra scarcely 

 amounting to half is red, and the remainder or distal portion black. The legs are 

 simple, all their parts being of normal size and proportions, the femora, are not incras- 

 sated, the tibiae are entire and have two spines at their apex : the tarsi are five-jointed, 

 slightly dilated and hairy ; the basal joint is considerably longer than the rest, the 

 second slightly excavated externally, the third more excavated, almost notched, the 

 fourth very deeply notched, or rather divided into two large, rounded, flattened lobes, 

 the fifth is slender and somewhat cylindrical, terminating in two widely divaricating, 

 hooked claws, which are destitute of serratures or teeth : in general appearance the 

 tarsi very much resemble those of a Lamia, with this notable distinction, that the 

 bilobed joint is numerically different, in Agasma being the fourth, in Lamia the third ; 

 all the coxae are red ; the pro- and mesofemora are red ; the basal half of the protibiae 

 and the basal portion of the mesotibiae are red ; all other parts of the legs are black ; 

 each pair of legs is closely approximate at its base, the hind pair the least so. The 

 abdomen is steel-blue beneath, shining and minutely punctured, the terminal seg- 

 ment is completely divided longitudinally, and the penultimate segment deeply 

 notched. 



Hab. — Vicinity of Richmond or Clarence River, north-east of New Holland : in 

 the collection of Mr. S. Stevens. 



I confess to feeling considerable difficulty as to fixing the natural order to which 

 this insect belongs. Taking into consideration its general habit, and figure, the 

 structure of head and antennae, its carinated elytra, and the country whence it has 

 been imported, the mind seems naturally inclined to refer it to such longicorn groups 

 as the Tropides, Rhagiomorphae and Stenoderi, an inclination much encouraged by its 

 extreme superficial resemblance to Rhamnusium Salicis, a well-known Lepturidous 

 longicorn of the old continent. This idea, however, must be at once banished on an 

 examination of its truly pentamerous tarsi, and although the metatarsi are absent, and 

 therefore may by possibility have been tetramerous, and the insect thus a member of 

 the great heteromerous group, which I have called Hormocera, yet every probability 

 is against such a conclusion, since the structure of those tarsi which are present indi- 

 cates as clearly the structure of those which are absent, as the head and mouth of a 

 Tabanus proclaim that it belonged to a Dipterous insect. The structure of the an- 

 tennae forbids our placing this insect among the schismatocerous and cordylocerous 

 Pentamera, and the entire protibiae separate it from the Nematocera: so that our field 

 of enquiry is limited to the Prionocera, and its distant antennae, and the characters of 

 its instrumenta cibaria are more accordant with the Melyrites than with any other 

 of that diversified stirps. Still I rather suggest than insist on this location, and 

 shall be very glad to hear, and if possible to embrace, the views of those entomologists 

 who may hereafter give this interesting insect a more rigid investigation. 



Edward Newman. 



