BY ARTHUR M. LEA. 207 



OXYTELUS LATERALIS, n.sp. 



$. Moderately wide, shining. Testaceous, prothorax more or 

 less feebly clouded with brown in the middle; head piceous, the 

 antennary tubercles and under surface paler; antennae infuscate, 

 the basal joints paler; sterna and abdomen (except margins) 

 piceous-brown, legs paler than elytra. 



Head rather small; somewhat coarsely and irregularly punctate, 

 with a very indistinct and small median fovea. Clypeus depressed 

 and moderately punctate. Prothorax widely transverse, slightly 

 wider than the head, near base very little narrower than apex 

 but extreme base much narrower; with sharply defined but com- 

 paratively small and sparse punctures; with three feeble median 

 impressions and a rather large but vague one on each side. 

 Elytra moderately transverse, about once and one-half the length 

 of prothorax but not much wider, sides slightly inflated poste- 

 riorly; with comparatively small scattered punctures which are 

 smaller towards suture and base than elsewhere. Apical segment 

 of abdomen with a very distinct and rather wide longitudinal 

 impression. Length 3|, to apex of elytra lj; variation in length 

 3-3| mm. 



2- Differs in having the head smaller and its punctures rather 

 larger, especially on the clypeus; the prothorax longer, the sides 

 more regularly rounded and with larger and denser punctures, 

 the median impression is more clearly defined and the medio- 

 lateral ones less clearly. 



Hob. — Sydney and Tamworth, N.S.W. 



This species has been in my collection for a long while under 

 the name of 0. impressifrons, but evidently wrongly so, as only 

 the head and abdomen (except margins) could be called " black," 

 and even then not fairly so, whilst the prothorax is not even 

 dark brown. The species appears to be a very common one. It 

 is allied to 0. varius, from which it differs in being rather larger 

 and wider; moreover, of all the specimens of 0. varius that I 

 have seen not one has the margins of the abdomen paler than its 

 disc, whilst in the specimens under examination of the above 

 species the margins are invariably paler. 



