ON THE CETONIIDiE OF SOUTH AFEICA. 



23 



always on the foliage of the underwood which grows beneath the Palms. The whole section of Diplog- 

 nathce GagatesicB is remarkable for having a thorax lobed behind like that of the genus Gymnetimis. 



Sub-genus 4. Gnathocera, Kirby. 



44. This is the genus Gnathocera of Kirby, as published in the Linnean Transactions ; but 

 it is not the genus Gnathocera of Gory. By the last entomologist our present groupe is called 

 Amphistoros, and although he has adopted the very same type for it as Mr. Kirby, namely, 

 the Cetonia elata of Fabricius, he has given Kirby's name Gnathocera to another groupe ! 

 This confusion has arisen from indolence, or rather from the usual unwilhngness of the French 

 to consult original authorities. Mr. Kirby, not aware that the type of his new genus had 

 been described by Fabricius, called it Gnathocera vitticollis. But instead of reading Mr. 

 Kirby's well-known papers, M. Gory appears to have merely consulted the catalogue of 

 M. Dejean, a work too full of this kind of error. The name Amphistoros, therefore, can never 

 be applied, unless perhaps to some hereafter-to-be-discovered section of this sub-genus ; and 

 the groupe called "Gnathocera" by Gory requires another name. I shall, however, save 

 naturalists the trouble of inventing a new one, by adopting for Gory's groupe the name 

 of Coruphes or Coryphe, which, according to what is stated in his introduction, he originally 

 intended to give to it. 



45. The sub-genus Gnathocera is tolerably well marked out by Kirby, but by M. Gory the 

 parts of the mouth are badly described, and erroneously figured. The outer and inner lobe of 

 the maxilla are both furnished with about three or four small teeth in each. This curious 

 form of maxillae, the dentated clypeus, the advanced mesosternum, and emarginate mentum, 

 all serve to separate Gnathocera from Diplognatha. As yet we only know one section of it, 

 which is from Intratropical Africa. 



Suh-genus 5. Macroma, G. P. - 



46. This is one of the most singular sub-genera of the Cetoniida yet known, so far as the 

 organs of the mouth are concerned ; but it shews that M. Gory neither understood the true 

 character of the family, nor had fully investigated the structure of the sub-genera, when he 

 distinguished the Cetoniida, from the rest of Petalocera, by their having the mandibles 

 " rudimentary or even absent." Here is a sub-genus, called "Macroma" by Gory, which has 

 mandibles and maxillee as strong, hard, and corneous as any melolonthidous insect. Still 

 they are but modifications of the usual manducatory organs of the Cetoniidce. The maxillse 

 and mentum are more accurately figured than usual by Gory ; of the mandibles he says 

 nothing. These are shaped like those of Machidius, only sharper ; the membranaceous 

 subquadrate part being evanescent. The maxillae have two strong teeth at the apex of the 

 inner lobe, and one strong sharp curved one holding the place of the terminal process. I 

 understand this maxilla to be that of Gnathocera, only modified in as far as that the several 

 teeth in each lobe of the latter sub-genus are here confluent, so as to form a maxilla which has 

 nothing resembling it among Petalocerous Coleoptera, unless it be that of Oplostomus, 

 Cryptodus, or Cremastocheilus. There is no pencil of hair on the outside of the terminal process. 

 If Macroma javanica and M. bicolor of Gory belong to this sub-genus, as I believe they do, 

 then they will probably form distinct sections of it. The type of the sub-genera has hitherto been 

 brought from Senegal ; but Dr. Smith having gone north within the tropics, has brought it also 

 from the extreme point of his journey. This is the more curious, as he was on the east coast, so 



