Ig3 Tenebrionidae und Curculionidae. 395 
Adesmiidae: 19 species were captured. 
Like the Zophosinae found in the sand dunes of the sea board, most of the Adesmiidae found 
in that locality have their tibiae provided with very long spurs to enable them to go over the same unsuit- 
able ground; they are also very long-legged. But although they occur on arenaceous ground and are also 
provided with very long legs the congeneric species found in Abyssinia and Egypt are without these 
especially long spurs. In Dr. Schultze's collection are represented Adesmia marginipennis, and Stenocara 
ebumea. From the same localities I have myself recorded A. candidipennis and A. langi. These four species 
have the head and thorax black, but the elytra are white, even pure white, a character confined among 
the Tenebrionidae, to the sand species and to Calosis amabilis, but the majority of these dunefrequenting 
Adesmia are, like the Zophosinae covered with a light grey or whitish pulverulence. When disturbed 
they run and set to work to bury themselves head foremost in the sand, which they succeed in doing 
fairly quickly, although their fore tarsi are not provided with stiff bristles in the manner of fossorial wasps. 
The protective advantage against detection afforded by the white or pulverulent greyish elytra is obvious, 
since it is that part which is hidden last in the sand. I have myself watched several of these species in 
situ. The more rotund, shorter legged species are found on more solid ground, hence the comparative 
brevity of the tibial spurs. 
The Tentyriinae: (6 species) do not call for special comment, nor Hematismus which are pretty 
broadly dispersed in Africa. The Cryptochilinae, an endemic tribe, are represented by two species in 
one of which a whitish colour also predominates, but it is when we reach the Eurychorinae that we 
come to a mode of protection really astonishing. In the species belonging to the genera Eurychora, Pogono- 
basis, Peristeptus etc., the upper part of the flat body is covered with a lanuginose excretion looking for all 
the world, like a mass of mucor or the ground spiders silky cobweb to which is affixed or is caught the 
dust of the soil on which these ground-insects move; this covering disguises them more than the excrements 
heaped on their back by some kinds of insect larvae. Wingless, and of very slow motion these Eurychorid 
are evenly represented everywhere in South Africa, and on that account racial differences are discerned 
with much difficulty. 
Molurinae: Most numerously represented in South Africa are the Molurinae 394 described species. 
In this tribe the number of Psammodes are especially large. All of a slow gait, hardly taking any food *), 
they are very widely spread in South Africa ; they would prove almost endemic were it not for a few 
species found in German West Africa and north of Cape Lopez. The males have all a pilose patch in the 
centre of one or more of the abdominal segments. They are in the habit of striking with the abdomen and 
at night, the ground, or the floor of the houses if they have entered on habitation, either as a call to the 
female, or a challenge to other males of their own kind, and are commonly known here on that account 
under the name of Tock-Tockies. The species found in the Western part, and especially along the sea- 
board have a facies of their own, and are thus distinguished from the also numerous species occurring on 
the eastern sea-board or its neighbourhood. In the vicinity of the Kalahari desert there occurs the giant 
of the family Psammodes sulcicollis Per. = P. rehbocki Kolb. which reaches a length of 73 mm. On the whole 
the ränge of most of the species is very greatly limited, and the difficulty of their study is greatly enhanced 
because according to the greater or lesser severity of the droughts the size of the imago State is sometimes 
half the normal, and the distinctive characters are dwarfed in proportion. There are nevertheless certain 
kinds like P. scrobicollis which extend from East to West. But those are very few. Slow-goers as are the 
1) I watched an example crunching a bit of Bestio sp. It was 9 hours at it and made very little impression on the reed. 
Jenaische Denkschriften. XIII. 25 Schultze, Forschungsreise in Südafrika I. 
50 
