521 



SCITON FLAVOCASTANEUS, 11. sp. 



PI. xxxvii., fig. 109. 



Flavo-castaneous; antennae flavous. Under-surface 

 rather sparsely clothed, upper-surface glabrous, except for a 

 few -hairs in lateral gutters of pronotum. 



Head with numerous rather small punctures, becoming 

 crowded near eyes, with a depression behind middle of clypeal 

 suture; ctypeus irregularly concave, with somewhat larger and 

 sparser punctures than between eyes, front vertical and 

 truncate, each side rather strongly incurved. Antennae nine-, 

 club three-jointed. Prothorax more than thrice as wide as 

 long, sides moderately rounded, hind angles rounded off, the 

 front ones lightly produced and acute; punctures rather 

 sparser, but otherwise much as on head. Scutellum impunc- 

 tate at apex and along middle. Elytra with punctures not 

 very large, but in places dense and frequently confluent 

 (subvermiculate) ; striation well-defined, but the geminate 

 pairs not much closer together than the others. Front tibiae 

 strongly tridentate ; two basal joints of hind tarsi subequal. 

 Length, 12J mm. 



Hab. — South Australia: Ooldea. Type (unique), I. 

 7869. 



A highly polished species, in this respect differing strik- 

 ingly from ruber and variicollis. which are also wider, 

 differently coloured, and with much less conspicuous punctures ; 

 paullus is slightly smaller, opaque, and otherwise very 

 different : the mentum is concave with the notch on each 

 side in front even more pronounced than on ruber. 



In Blackburn's table of the Sericoides (ante, 1898, p. 34) 

 Sciton is noted as having "front of clypeus with sharp lateral 

 angles, its sides straight," but on ruber (the typical species), 

 on paullus, and also on the present species, the clypeus whilst 

 truncate in front, has each side quite conspicuously sinuous. 

 Sciton ruber, Blackb. (pi. xxxvii., fig. 110). 

 S. paullus, Blackb. (pi. xxxvii., fig. 111). 



Outlines of the clypeus are given for comparison with 

 that of the above species. 



Ocnodus fallax, Blackb. 

 PI. xxxvii., fig. 112. 

 On the type male of this species the three basal joints of 

 the front tarsi are more dilated than on the female, and the 

 claw-joint is somewhat inflated and conspicuously lop-sided; 

 the latter feature may have been considered accidental by 

 Blackburn, and so not mentioned, but it is exactly the same 

 on a male taken at Cue bv Mr. H. W. Brown. 



