380 Mr. G. C. Champion on 



suspected, I believe, amongst the Buprestidse, nevertheless 

 the observations of Dr. Chapman and myself are sufficient 

 to prove that in one species of the family, at least, such a 

 peculiarity is to be found. The females agree very nearly 

 with the brief diagnosis of Buprestis sanguined, Fabr., from 

 Mogador, and with the description and figure of B. levail- 

 lanti, Lucas, from Mostaganem, Algeria (these insects being 

 treated as synonymous in the Catalogues of Gemminger 

 and Harold and E. Saunders *), and the males with the 

 description of B. margaripida, Mars., from Algeria, the 

 male only of the latter being known. There can be very 

 little doubt that the Albarracin insect is synonymous with 

 B. sanguinea, Fabr. (a species not identified by Marseul 

 and other modern writers), as in addition to the above- 

 mentioned specimen from Gibraltar, there is a doubtful 

 record of the female (under B. levaillanti) from Tangier. *f* 

 As regards the Algerian B. levaillanti and B. nmrgdripictd, 

 M. Rene Oberthur has been kind enough to send me a 

 coloured drawing of each of them, and also to compare a 

 male and female of the Spanish insect with his single 

 specimens of each of these so-called species, that of the 

 male (B. margaripictd) being the only one recorded. The 

 differences noted by him (apart from the somewhat dis- 

 similar elytral markings of the male) chiefly consist in the 

 relative width of the front of the head, the armature of the 

 apices of the elytra, and the extent of the emargination of 

 the apex of the fifth ventral segment in the male. 



From analogy, it is almost certain that B. margaripida 

 and B. levaillanti are but sexes of one species, and in this 

 M. Oberthur is inclined to agree with me ; and it is very 

 probable that the above-mentioned differences between the 

 Spanish and the Algerian forms will prove to be in- 

 constant when a longer series of the latter is available for 

 comparison, and are no greater than might be expected 

 between specimens from distant localities. 



The following description is taken from the series of 

 upwards of twenty of each sex before me : — 



£ . Nigro- violaceous, the lateral margins of the prothorax broadly, 

 and the anterior margin narrowly (except in the middle), and four 



* Lucas (Bull. Soc. Ent. Fr., 1884, pp. xli, xlii) disputed the 

 identity of his B. levaillanti with B. sanguinea, Fabr., but without 

 giving substantial reasons for maintaining them as distinct. 



t Marseul, Monogr. Buprest.,p. 187 (1865). 



