AND SPECIES OF GA.LERUCnS".E. 



163 



portion by a sutural line, its surface transversely concave ; 

 antennae filiform (the five upper joints in the solitary specimen 

 under examination broken off). Thorax scarcely broader than 

 long ; sidf s slightly diverging and slightly sinuate from the base 

 to beyond the middle, thence rounded and converging towards 

 the apex ; upper surface convex, smooth, impunctate, hinder 

 disk impressed on each side with a large shallow fovea. Elytra 

 parallel, subcylindrical ; each with eight or nine slightly elevated 

 costge, the interspaces distinctly punctured. 



The peculiar formation of the clypeus in this species closely 

 resembles that of the same segment in C}ieiloxe7ia, As the pecu- 

 liarity in the present instance is, however, probably only sexual, 

 the removal of the insect from the genus in which I have placed 

 it will not be justified until the other sex is known. 



Genus Mot^olepta, Ericlson. 



This natural group, founded by Ericbson in 1843 on an African 

 species, M. pauperata, has been subsequently divided by Chapuis, 

 myself, and others into smaller generic groups, on characters 

 derived chiefly from the open or closed state of the anterior 

 acetabula and on the length of the epipleurse. I have already 

 stated my reasons for considering the first of these characters to 

 be in a great measure unsatisfactory, and at any rate one not to 

 be depended on by which to divide the Galerucincs into primary 

 sections. In MonoJepta (taken as a whole) the lateral angles of 

 the subbasal lobe of the presternum are well developed, and in 

 the great majority of species join the apices of tlie epimera to 

 close the anterior acetabula; in'some instances, however {JLupe- 

 rodes alhoplagiatns, &c.), the epimera are abbreviated before 

 reaching the sides of the lobe, and const quently the acetabula 

 remain distinctly open ; in a third set (OchraJea) the acetabula 

 are found to be both closed, and widely open in the same species, ^ 

 every intermediate st^ge occurring between the two extremes *. 



Tiie second, of great value when well defined and when really 

 terminating at a given point, as in Avla cop J/ora and other genera, 



* In Ltiperodes prceustvs and L. disnrpens, two insects which differ from the rest 

 of the genus in their oblong, not oyate form, the sides of the subbasal lobe are 

 not produced, the lobe itself being either narrowly wedge-shaped or noduliform ; 

 the epimera are also much abbreviated, leaving the acetabula broadly open. 

 These species should, I think, be retained in Luperodes. 



