'44 
covering the shoulder and extending in a slender streak to the 
disk, the other placed obliquely a little behind the middle ; the 
tips of the elytra are briefly sinuate-truncate, the external 
angles produced into stout spines. Body beneath and legs 
clothed with very dark-grey pile; the middle of the abdomen 
naked, shining black. The fore tibise of the d are untoothed. 
This species occurred only at Ega and St. Paulo, on the Upper 
Amazons. It differs very little, except in colour, from SL coeno- 
Slimy and may be considered a geographical variety or race of 
that species. I have not seen either form in collections from 
other parts of South America. 
Genus Platysternus (Dej.), Blanch. 
‘ Blanchard, Histoire des Insectes, ii. 156. 
The few words given by Blanchard as generic characters, in 
the place above quoted, have little or no meaning; the genus, 
however, is well known to entomologists from the figure given 
by Olivier of the only described species. It is a singular form 
of Lamiaire, partaking of the characters of Steirastoma and the 
Anisocerinse — two widely difierent groups. The shape of the 
thorax, the closed acetabular sutures, and the direction of the 
centro-basal ridges of the elytra show a near affinity with the 
Steirastomata y whilst the form and smoothness of the muzzle, 
the broadly rounded apices of the elytra, and the depression of 
the fore edge of the metasternum are so many points of resem- 
blance to the Anisocerinse. The lateral prominences of the 
thorax are not simple, but bicuspid, the anterior cusp, however, 
being very much smaller than the posterior one. The antennae 
are slender, one-fourth shorter than the body, and the eleventh 
joint, as in most of the Anisocerinse, is much shorter than the 
tenth. 
Platysternus hehrceuSy Pabricius. 
Cerambyx hebrceus, Fabr. Mant. Ins. i. 131. 
, Oliv. Ent. iv. p. 62, t. 15. f. 106. 
I met with this rare and magnificent insect only at Caripi, 
near Para. It was there found in some numbers, gnawing the 
bark of living Guariuba trees — a lofty tree of the order Legu- 
minosse, whose bark is thick, smooth, and friable, and much fre- 
quented by bark-feeding insects, especially Curculionides of the 
group Cryptorhynchini. Cicindelidse of the rare genus Iresia 
are sometimes seen on the same tree, coursing over the trunk 
and preying upon the vegetable feeders ; in fact, I never met 
with Iresice except on Guariuba trees. The large Cratosomi 
sometimes abound, and gnaw large holes in the bark. These 
insects do not seem to breed in the wood of the standing trees. 
