418 



HALTICINiE. 



339. Phygasia violaceipennis, Jacoby. 



Phygasia violaceipemiis, Jac, Ann. Soc. Ent .Belg. xlvii, 1903, 

 p. 103. 



Body oblong. Colour of head, prothorax and breast, brown ; 

 antennae and legs obscure fuscous, tibiae aud tarsi of a deeper 

 shade ; elytra dark violaceous ; abdomen black ; scutellum brown. 



Head with vertex iinpunctate, frontal tubercles and interantennal 

 carina well developed. Antennae extending to about the middle 

 of the elytra; first segment thickened, second small, rounded, 

 third appearing slightly longer than fourth, the last three seg- 

 ments somewhat thinner, the preceding four about equal in length. 

 Prothorax broader than long, sides rounded, the four corners with 

 setiferous tubercles; surface convex, finely and sparsely punctate, 

 the basal transverse furrow shallow. Scutellum triangular, with 

 apex rounded and surface smooth and iinpunctate. Elytra 

 broader at base than prothorax ; surface finely, closely, and 

 confusedly punctate. 



Length, 4|-5 mm. 



South India: Pondicherry. 



Type in the British Museum. 



Genus HALTICA, Fabricius. 



Altica*, Geoffroy, Histoire des Insectes, i, 1762, p. 244 f ; Fabricius, 



Syst. Ent. 1775, p. 112. 

 Haltica, Chapuis, Gen. Col. xi, 1875, p. 59. 



Graptodera,, Chevrolat, in d'Orbigny, Diet. Univ. Hist. Nat. (original 

 edition) vi, 1845 %, p. 307. 



Genotype, Chrysomela oleracea, Linn. (Europe). 



This is the oldest and the most difficult genus in the whole 

 group. The difficulty arises from the fact that insects from very 

 widely separated regions show very little difference in external 



* Fabricius, following Geoffroy, used the word Altica without the H. Later 

 authors introduced the R, in order to make the name more classically correct. 

 As a rule I adhere to the original spelling, but in the present case I do not 

 do so, because it would entail a large number of changes in indexing, etc. 



t In this work, in which Geoffroy proposed the name Altica, he did not 

 employ the binominal method of nomenclature. Although there is in this 

 case no doubt to which insect he was referring (since he mentioned Linmeus' 

 species no. 35 in the genus Chrysomela, Syst. Nat. ed. x), he cannot be 

 regarded as the author of the present genus, because his "Histoire" is for 

 such purposes wholly rejected by common consent. The authorship is, 

 therefore, here ascribed to Fabricius, the next user of the name, as has already 

 been done by other writers on this group. 



+ The correct date is 1845, although 1849 or 1861 may occur on the title- 

 page. See Sherbornand Palmer, " Dates of Charles d'Orbigny's ' Dictionnaire 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, 1839-1849 ' " (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (7) iii, 1899, 

 p. 350). 



