1907.] Catalogue of the Coleoptera of South Africa. 389 



Amaurodes passerinii, Westw., 



Arcan. Entomol. ii., 1844, p. 71, pi. 67, fig. 1, $ ; 



Schaum, Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1844, p. 401, pi. xi., fig. 1, ? ', 



Bertoloni, Nov. Comm. Acad. Bonon., x., p. 395, pi. viii., fig. 4, $ . 



Male : Black, covered on the upper side of the head and cephalic 

 horns as well as on the prothorax with a muddy grey tomentum 

 with the exception of a moderately broad, median longitudinal 

 velvety black band which reaches from apex to base, and a minute, 

 round, supra-marginal spot of the same colour on each side of the 

 prothorax ; the elytra are covered with a velvety black tomentum 

 and have on each side a dorsal row of four round, orange fulvous 

 patches, and a lateral one of five similar but slightly smaller ones ; 

 under side black, pectus very sparingly hairy, legs black with the 

 hind tibiae and tarsi red ; the tomentum hides entirely the sculpture 

 of the upper side ; the clypeal horn varies much in size (4-8-J mm. 

 in the curve), the bifid process being almost straight in the smaller 

 development and strongly divaricating in the larger, but the two 

 hamate teeth of the vertex and the supra-ocular raised process are 

 equally strongly developed in all the examples that I have seen, 

 irrespective of their size ; the lower margin of the pygidium is 

 densely hairy, and the hind tibiae have a few hairs near the base, 

 and are not dentate on the upper side. 



Female : Coloured like the male, but the head has no tomentum, 

 and is black with a median longitudinal red band on the clypeus ; 

 the median thoracic black band is broader than in the male, the 

 pygidium is briefly pubescent, and the pubescence along the margin 

 is as long as in the male. 



Length 31-40 mm. ; width 14-17 mm. 



Hob. Natal (Durban, Maritzburg, Lower Tugela) ; Transvaal 

 (Potchefstroom, Barberton) ; Mozambique (Lourenco-Marquez, In- 

 hambane) ; East Central Africa (Usambara, &c). 



In the South African examples the colouration is singularly 

 constant, the lateral denuded macule of the prothorax being, 

 however, almost obliterated in some females, but in examples 

 from East Africa that spot develops into patches, and even in a 

 supra-lateral band reaching from apex to base, and partly or com- 

 pletely connected along the base with the median longitudinal one 

 (Boileau, Bull. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1898, p. 217, c. fig. ; Kraatz, D. E. Z., 

 1896, p. 349). 



About Durban this species feeds chiefly on the gum of the " flat- 

 crown ' ' (Albizzia fas tigiata) . 



