262 
In Europe the genus Thanmurgus breeds in the stems of various 
species of Euphorbia, of Delphinium, Origanum and Teucrium, and 
according to Perris, the females do not burrow, but lay their eggs in 
wounds gnawed on the outside of the stem; in this genus the asperi- 
ties on the front of the prothorax have completely dissapeared. 
In Burma a species which I have identified as Platydactylus sex- 
spinosus Motsch (Ind. Mus. Notes, in, 1, 64), injures rice by boring into 
the stalks, and has been known to destroy a field of an acre (Joe. cit. I, 
1, 61). This attack on the thin stem of a cereal, a very different thing 
from that of Xyleborus perforans on the woody sugar-cane, is so remark- 
able, and the insect, common in collections from Ceylon and the Malay 
Archipelago, is of so singular a form, that it is to be regretted that no 
further information has come to hand. The mode of larval life is 
unknown, and it is impossible to conjecture whether the larva is 
destructive or whether the beetle alone is responsible for the damage 
and breeds in other material, as is the case with Myelophilus piniperda 
and its attacks on pine shoots. 
Two undescribed instances of depredations on soft tissues have come 
under my notice.* 
In the early part of this year I received from Mr. C. A. Barber, 
superintendent of the botanical department of the Leeward Islands, 
through Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell, specimens of a small Tomicine which 
had injured the young leaves of sugar-cane in Nevis, West Indies. 
Three beetles alone were sent, belonging to two species, and no spec- 
imens of the injured leaves. 
A demand for more material brought specimens of the leaves Avith 
beetle-holes and burrows, and of the insects preserved in alcohol. 
The offender is Hypothenemus eruditus Westw. The examples show 
certain differences from the type, but not of sufficient importance to 
indicate a new species. The diversity of color is strongly marked, the 
posterior part of the head, the prothorax, and limbs being testaceous, 
the rest piceous ; the prothorax is more convex, the disk less depressed 
on either side, its asperities few, very large, and piceous at the tip, the 
anterior border with but four or five well-marked tubercles : the length 
averages 1-4 mm. The color and sparse tuberculatum of the thorax 
give it a very different appearance to the unicolorous Hypotlienemus 
aspericollis Woll, from the Canaries, which Dr. Sharp regards as the 
same species, and in which the thoracic tubercles are numerous and 
smaller. But I agree with the latter and other zoologists as to its 
variability, and it appears desirable that these separate forms shall 
not be regarded as specifically distinct unless they coexist in the same 
country. 
Two structural points deserve notice. 
There is some doubt as to the number of joints in the antennal funi- 
culus of H. eruditus. Westwood describes and figures three, indicating 
one suture in the distal division. Eichhoff, while admitting its possible 
