330 
LIFE-HISTORIES OF AUSTRALIAN COLEOPTERA, 
this, together with the castings, forming irregular excrescences 
upon the branches. 
The beetle is 2f lines in length, of a general creamy buff colour, 
due to a dense growth of fine hairs covering the dark chocolate 
coloured elytra, the natural colour visible only on the snout; 
the centre of the thorax and from the shoulders for about two- 
thirds of the back pale reddish-brown, thickly interspersed with 
fine black spines or bristles commencing on the thorax, and 
increasing in number towards the middle of the elytra, where 
they form a dark patch. The thorax is further ornamented with 
two pairs of small downy plumes on the sides, and the elytra are 
broadly impressed with coarsely punctured stria?. 
The beetle is found at large upon its food plant early in 
November; most of my specimens were obtained on a large patch 
of the bushes at the head of the Double Bay Valley. 
DOTICUS PESTILENS, Olliff. 
Larva 2 to 2| lines in length; pale yellow, with the apical 
portion of the abdomen slightly ferruginous; head small and 
orbicular, partly hidden by the thorax; jaws small, with the tips 
divided into two pointed teeth, with a larger and more angular- 
one on the inner edge; segments rounded, the abdominal ones 
forming a double fold along the sides, the under fold smallest, tip 
of the abdomen curled inwards, and the whole larva clothed with 
long hairs. 
The larva? feed in the interior of lumpy reddish-brown galls, 
produced in the first instance, I think, by the attacks of lepidop- 
terous larva?, upon the tips of the branchlets of Acacia decurrens; 
the galls or rather after-growths upon the twigs become dead and 
dry up in February; and at this season nearly every gall is 
tenanted with a little grub, covered with woody dust. 
The beetle, about 3 lines in length, dark brown in colour and 
covered with greyish down, was found in the box containing the 
galls about a week after they were collected. It has a peculiar 
way of jumping when touched. 
