154 



Lacord aire's statement. The former says that the antennal club 

 consists of three joints while the latter somewhat inconsistently 

 states (in the generalities of the " Groupe ") that in the male the 

 club consists of four or five joints, and then in the formal 

 diagnosis affirms that joints 6-8 are grudually transverse and that 

 joints 9-11 form the club ; and that the females can hardly be 

 distinguished from the males except by their shorter antennae. 

 Turning to the specimens before me I find a slight difference in 

 the structure of the ventral segments between two of them and 

 the other four, — the two having those segments distincly though 

 slightly depressed down the middle line and the apical ventral 

 segment so related to the pygidium that when the ventral seg- 

 ments are looked at from directly above (the specimen being laid 

 on its back) the edge of the pygidium can be seen beyond it, 

 while the ventral segments of the other four are evenly convex 

 and the apex of the apical segment just covers and conceals from 

 sight the edge of the pygidium. The two specimens have antennae 

 in which joints 6 8 are so strongly and gradually dilated that it is 

 difficult to say at which joint the club really begins (which might 

 account for Lacordaire's contradictory statements), — while the 

 antennae of the other four have a distinctly three-jointed club and 

 are I think females, — the two being males. I take it that Jekel 

 founded the genus on the female, and that Lacordaire diagnosed 

 a male and either failed to observe the antennae of the female 

 correctly, or regarded as male and female specimens that were 

 really the males of two species. 



The genus is a verv well marked one among the Australian 

 Anthribidce by the unusual character of the antennal scrobes 

 being basal and sulciform, in conjunction with the ante-basal 

 carina of the pronotum wanting and the lateral carinas continued 

 nearly to the apex where they do not form an angle. I observe 

 in all the specimens before me that the carinae of the pronotum 

 are finely and closely denticulate in their entire length but as 

 this character is not referred to by Jekel or Lacordaire it may 

 not be present in B. nitidicutis, Jekel (from India and Java), the 

 typical species. 



It is to be noted that M. Lacordaire describes under the name 

 Gynandrocerus an African genus which he says differs from 

 Basitropis only by the sexual antennal characters which approach 

 those I have described above. If there is really no other differ- 

 ence between the two genera Gynandrocerus cannot stand. 

 B. relicta, sp. nov. Mas. Cylindrica ; picea, pube densissima 

 nigro-picea vestita, hac pube pallida partim testacea partim 

 alba variegata ; capite subgrosse sat crebre aequaliter 

 punctulato ; rostro fortiter transverso, inaequali, postice 

 longitudinaliter obsolete canaliculato, antice arcuatim 



