1900.] Catalogue of the ColeoiHera of Soutli Africa. 551 



in the male and armed with a very long horn or with a moderate 

 sized one according to the development in the male, simple and 

 with a transverse median ridge in the female ; elytra distinctly 

 ampliate laterally past the ante-median sinuation, non-striate and 

 hardly aciculate ; propygidium and pygidium of Oryctes ; under side, 

 tibiae, and tarsi similar. 



Aechon centaurus. Fabric, 

 Syst. Entom., p. 8. 



Head and anterior part of prothorax piceous red, the rest of the 

 body chestnut-brown ; head deeply pitted and with the basal part of 

 the clypeus covered with semiconcentric folds, genae reduced to a 

 narrow, oblique lobe, forming the canthus of the eye, in the male 

 the head bears in the large development a very large, compressed 

 horn slanting forward, hooked at apex and having a very large 

 compressed inner tubercle at a short distance from the hooked tip, 

 in the smaller development the cephalic horn is not much more 

 pronounced than in Oryctes monoceros ; the female has only two short 

 tubercles united by a sinuate carina ; prothorax very retuse and 

 constricted laterally in the large development of the male, quite 

 impunctate, and with the median part of the disk produced into a 

 long, compressed horn, bi-furcate at tip, and having at the base two 

 conspicuous horizontal teeth ; this horn, which is directed forward 

 and slightly curved, projects a little beyond the cephalic one, but is 

 of the same length, exceeding sometimes 26 mm. ; in the small 

 development the anterior part of the prothorax is a little excavate,, 

 and has a short, sharp, slightly bent forward median tooth only 

 6 or 8 mm. long ; in the female the prothorax is simple, a little 

 attenuate obliquely laterally in front, slightly retuse in the anterior 

 part, with the retuse part edged by a very distinct, short, rounded 

 carina ; it is roughly and irregularly plicate transversely for half 

 the width, and the posterior half is smooth, except for a few 

 punctures along the base ; elytra with the striae, even the juxta- 

 sutural one indistinct, and the whole surface dotted here and there 

 with very fine and very remote punctures ; pygidium quite smooth 

 in the male, closely punctate and slightly scabrose and fringed 

 with hairs above the middle in the female, under side very little 

 pubescent. 



Length, exclusive of horns, 41:-62 mm. ; width 24-33 mm. 



This species inhabits the Guinea and Cameroon Coasts of Western 

 Africa ; but I have received a large female (56 mm,) from Durban,. 



