Occurrence of Blind Insects in South Africa. 21 



'Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France,' 1892, p. 27. Two 

 Coleoptera belonging to the family Bsclaphida were examined by 

 me and proved not to belong to a cavern-inhabiting form : one, 

 Tmesiphorus Simoni, Kaffr., has very large eyes, is dark in colour, 

 and closely allied to a species abounding in the forests of Singapore ; 

 the second one, Batrisus cavicola, Kaffr., shows relationship with 

 some Australian forms, but the eyes are very small. It is the first 

 time that a species of the very large genus Batrisus has been found in 

 caves. 



It is worthy of note that one of the insects found in the caves 

 of the Pyrenees, in France, Machcerites Maria, which has in all 

 respects a subterranean facies, has well-developed, although small 

 eyes, while in the female the eyes are exceedingly small and 

 irregular, varying even in the same specimen. This peculiarity 

 is in accordance with the fact that in many insects the eyes are 

 smaller in the female than in the male. 



Caves are not, however, the only localities where blind and bleached 

 insects have been discovered. In the order Coleoptera, Anillus ; 

 Scotodipnus, Beicheia in the Car abides ; Apter anillus, Micrillus, 

 Scotodytes in the Staphylinida ; Amaurops in the Pselaphidce ; 

 Baymondia, Crypharis, and I believe Troglorhynchiis in the 

 Curculionidce, as well as some others, have been found in Europe 

 under big stones deeply embedded in the ground. I have myself 

 discovered some of these very species in such a position in the 

 South of France and in Algeria. With the exception of one Anillus, 

 found in California, these insects seemed until quite lately to be con- 

 fined to Europe. The difficulty of detecting these minute species 

 may perhaps account for their not being recorded from other parts of 

 the world, and my supposition seems to be justified by the discovery 

 made by myself in Cape Town, and also in the neighbourhood of 

 Cape Town (Newlands), of a Scotodipnus and a Beicheia belonging 

 to the so-called subterranean genera. 



Scotodipnus capensis, Per., is very closely allied to its congener 

 known from the South of France, Italy, and Corsica ; it is an entirely 

 blind insect, of pale, transparent colour, amber-like almost. It is 

 found under stones at the foot of the Lion's Eump, near Cape 

 Town, in the month of January. When the stone is turned over 

 the insect is not detected at once, but if the muddy ground has 

 remained attached to the under side of the stone, after a short 

 exposition to the rays of the sun or to the daylight, Scotodipnus, 

 who seems uneasy and disturbed by the heat, and possibly also 

 by the light affecting its nervous system through the translucid 

 teguments of the body, begins to move rather quickly and can then 



