of the Royal Physical Society. 287 



appartienne h ce genre." Of Schmidt-Goebel's species I have 

 only had the opportunity of examining one (C. flexuosa), and I 

 find that it most certainly has no tooth to the mentum ; and if 

 this mistake has happened to one of his species, it is none the 

 less likely to have been repeated in the others. I also possess 

 Hope's C. bicincta, and there the same mistake or oversight has 

 occurred. The six African species are described, one by Dejean, 

 four by Boheman, and one by Chaudoir. As Dejean habitually 

 disregards the form of the mentum, his placing his species (Ok 

 crucifera) in the genus Coptodera goes for nothing, either one 

 way or the other. Neither does Prof. Boheman say any- 

 thing about the mentum ; and he may either have overlooked it 

 altogether, or fallen into the same error as Schmidt-Goebel and 

 Hope. I have not seen any of his species, but the system of 

 coloration and general description shows a great resemblance to 

 my Old Calabar species, Nycteis Championi and Belonognatha 

 rugiceps. There only remains the Coptodera figurata of Chaudoir, 

 and although it is not likely that he has overlooked the mentum 

 (fully alive as he was to its importance), still it is not impossible 

 that he may have fallen into the error regarding it of which I 

 have been speaking. In my specimens of Nycteis from Old 

 Calabar, the central base of the ligula between the roots of the 

 palpi forms a sort of triangular raised space, which on a cur- 

 sory view might easily be mistaken for a tooth in the middle of 

 the mentum, although more careful examination under a suffi- 

 ciently high power shows that it may be separated from it, and, 

 in point of fact, does not belong to it at all ; so that it is not 

 difficult to see how authors even of such standing and acknow- 

 ledged accuracy as those referred to, should have fallen into this 

 misconception. 



Taking, then, the species without a tooth to the mentum as 

 constituting the genus Nycteis, my arrangement of the species 

 belonging to it would be as follows : — 



Nycteis. 



Essential characters the same as in Coptodera, but without 

 the middle tooth to the mentum. 



Subgenus 1. (Nycteis proper.) 



Elytra finely transversely aciculated, and body not very convex. 



Under this head fall Coptodera flexuosa, Schmidt-Goebel, and 

 probably all the other Eastern Coptodera described by him; 

 Coptodera bicincta, Hope ; probably all the Caffrarian species 

 described by Boheman ; Chaudoir' s C. figurata, and possibly 



vol. i. 2 c 



