•2U 



tunately, seem to have added the fault of carelessness, particularly 

 in apparently guessing at the sex of their specnnens ; tins is 

 shown by their sometimes giving characters that evidently belong 

 to a female, as those of a male, and vice versa. No description 

 of an Amycteride is of practical use unless the sex of the insect 

 described is ascertained beyond any doubt, and given. The sex 

 of all the specimens described in the following paper has been 

 determined with certainty. This may be done very easily by 

 relaxing the specimen and examining the pygidium, which m the 

 male (as in the Otiorhynchidce) is transversely divided, so that 

 there is a segment more on the upper side of the abdomen m the 

 male than in the female. 



There seem many features of importance that have been over- 

 looked by former writers on the Amycteridai ; some of these 

 have been used in the descriptions that follow, while others, that 

 seem capable of use, have been passed over as being rather ot 

 o-eneric than specific value, the use of such features tending to 

 overload descriptions of species and detract from their per- 

 spicuity No doubt some of the features used m the following 

 descriptions (as the relative length of the apical ventral segment 

 as compared to the two preceding ones together) are of more 

 than mere specific value, yet they are of too obvious importance 

 to be omitted from the description of a species ; at least till they 

 have been tabulated, and their true value deternnned ; such a 

 work would involve an exhaustive study of the Amyctenda;, and 

 is quite beyond the scope of this paper. 



I would note that, to my mind, the ocular lobes of the prothorax 

 cannot be considered as having, among the Amyctendw, the 

 classificatory value attributed to them by Mr. Pascoe m his table 

 of genera of the long-scaped Amyctendce (Jour. Linn boc, X.LL, 

 1873 p. 21). In the genus AcantJwlophus, while many species 

 (A. Marsha/mi, Kirby, &c.) have the ocular lobes well developed, 

 others have them almost (A. dentkolUs, Mad, &c.), or quite 

 (A granulatus, SI.) wanting; in Cuhicorhynchus, too, the 

 " lobes " are sometimes present, though generally wanting. For 

 this reason, and, because the ocular lobes seem not really pro- 

 cesses of the prothorax, but rather to be caused by the post- 

 ocular sinuosity of the anterior margin, I have preferred to note 

 the shape of the anterior margin without particular reference to 



the "lobes." _ ■ ^ ^i i ^ 



A reference to the humeral interstice of the elytra seems 

 needful. Sir William Macleay, disregarding the sutural inter- 

 stice calls the humeral the fourth interstice, and when explaining 

 his clivisions of the genus Sclerorhinus {Tra.-iis. Ent. Soc. N.S.W., 

 I 1865, p. 335) remarks that the fifth is more properly a lateral 

 interstice. It is evident the sutural interstice should be counted. 



