121 



tips of tibiae, and the tarsi black or infuscated. The abdomen 

 is usually infuscated, and frequently has a brassy gloss; the 

 metasternum is also usually infuscated, but is sometimes much 

 paler than the abdomen ; rarely the whole under-surf ace is 

 pale. The species occurs in abundance in the warmer ports 

 of Australia ; specimens in the Museum being from Port 

 Curtis (^6) and Charters Towers in Queensland, the Northern 

 Territory, (37) and Roebuck Bay in North-western Australia. 



Rhyparida nitida, Clark (?) 

 Two specimens from North-western Australia ^^^s) possibly 

 belong to this species. One is brassy-purple, with dark under- 

 surface and legs ; the other is brassy, with legs obscurely 

 reddish. They have the head and prothorax finely shagreened, 

 and with fine, scattered punctures. The clypeus is indistinctly 

 separated from the face, and has fairly dense and distinct, but 

 not sharply-defined punctures. The elytral punctures are 

 coarse, but beyond the middle rapidly decrease in size. 



Rhyparida nigrocyanea, Clark. 



Two specimens, measuring eight mm. or four lines 

 (decidedly above the average for a dark species), and labelled 

 ''Interior S.A.," may belong to this species, but they differ 

 from the description in having the legs and antennae partly 

 reddish (although obscurely so), and in the head being not 

 ''foveolato," but with a narrowly impressed median line ; the 

 clypeus (not mentioned in the original description) has dense 

 and rather strong punctures, the others on the head being very 

 small. The prothorax, whilst not strongly transverse, is 

 distinctly wider across the middle than the median length ; 

 but this is also the case with didyma (which was given as the 

 type of Marseiis), to which nigrocyanea was referred, although 

 it was said to be ''quadrate or subquadrate," and "sub- 

 quadrato, non transverso." 



Since the above was written, Mr. Arrow sent a specimen 

 of the species for com.parison that was compared with the type, 

 and it agrees with these. 



Rhyparida rufa, Clark. 



A co-type of this species, sent for examination, is struc- 

 turally extremely close to nigrocyanea , except that the median 



(36) Identified by the late Rev. T. Blackburn as ruficollis. 



(37) Including the type of satelles. 



(38) The type was recorded as from New South Wales, but 

 several of the localities, given by the Rev. H. Clark in the paper 

 containing the description of this species, seem to be rather- 

 dubious. 



