BY THE HEV. T. BLACKBURN, 
1417 
of some of the earliei' descriptions. I have lately had in my 
hands a considerable collection of examples taken in various parts 
of Southern Australia (from Eucla to Melljourne), and also from 
various parts of the Northern Territory, and have been unable 
to consider those from Southern Australia as representing more 
than one veiy variable species. It is extremly difficult to find 
two specimens absolutely identical. I find variation to an end- 
less extent in the development of the furrows or fovese on the 
head and prothorax, in the outline of the prothorax (especially 
in the degree of its dilatation about and in front of the middle, 
and in the degree to which its posterior angles are directed 
outward), in the distinctness of the striation and the puncturation 
of the striae of the elytra, and in the shape of the apex of the 
same (some examples having them separately rounded with 
scarcely any trace of a mucro, some having them separately 
rounded with a distinct mucro, and some having them conjointly 
x’ounded with a more or less defined mucro). 
Turning to the [)ublished descriptions, one finds T. Australasice, 
Gory, to be the original Australian species, to which, some years 
later, the Rev. F. W. Hope added Manglesi and Fortnumi. 
Between these latter, and between either of them and Australasich, 
there seems to be no really tangible distinction except size. 
Some years later M. Candeze added M. 2Iurrayi, with the com- 
ment, “ Very near Australasue, from which one will nevertheless 
distinguish it easily by the longitudinal furrow of the head and 
prochorax, and the much less strong pubescence.” Regarding 
these distinciions I will observ’e that the latter is very likely to 
depend upon the freshness of the specimens, and that the former 
is sufficiently slight, because in the descriptions we find (A?ts- 
tralasicn) “ fronte longitrorsum profunde sulcata, prothorace 
canaliculata,” anrl {Marrayi) “front canalicule et foveole, pro- 
thorax presentant une ligne lis.se au milieu.” A few [)ages 
further on M. Candeze says of Manglesi that it is very near 
Murrayi (although he Judges from the description of the former 
that its head is more .srpiare and its elytra more distinctly punc- 
