| OCR Text |
Show 108 MR. M. JACOBY O N T H E [Feb. I, spots; elytra finely punctured, sparingly pubescent, the base and broad transverse band below the middle greenish piceous. Length 3 lines. Head impunctate, a triangular spot at the middle of the vertex, and another smaller one at each side, piceous ; eyes prominent; the frontal tubercles distinct, but rather small. Antennse as long as the body, piceous, the apices of all the joints testaceous, the first joint curved and slender, the second one extremely small, entirely testaceous, the eight following joints with long and slender appendages, the tenth much longer and broader than the preceding ones, the terminal joints long and slender. Thorax twice^as broad as long, the sides slightly rounded at, but somewhat constricted below, the middle, the posterior margin evenly rounded, the anterior one nearly straight; the surface obsoletely transversely depressed, entirely impunctate, with a narrow longitudinal band at the sides and three spots, placed triangularly at the middle, piceous. Scutellum triangular, testaceous. Elytra with two deep foveas below the base, the punctuation rather fine and placed in close, very irregular rows, the interstices slightly convex and furnished with rows of stiff testaceous hairs ; a narrow transverse band at the base, the interior of the subbasilar depressions, and a broad transverse band below the middle, consisting of longitudinal bands joined together, greenish aeneous or piceous; the elytral epipleura and the breast of the same colour. Tibiae slightly stained with piceous at their apices ; the latter unarmed; the first joint of the posterior tarsi as long as the three following joints together ; claws appendiculate ; anterior coxal cavities closed. Bogawantalawa. The genus Xenarthra was established by Mr. Baly on an insect likewise from Ceylon, and described in the ' Journal of Entomology' for 1860. The curiously shaped and deeply pectinated antennae, consisting of 12 or even 13 joints, will without difficulty allow the genus to be recognized at first sight. Closed anterior coxal cavities and unarmed tibiae seem to show the place of Xenarthra to be amongst the Platyxanthina of Chapuis. There is unfortunately only a single specimen of this handsome species before me, and being fixed upon a card I am not able to say with certainty to which sex it belongs. Mr. Baly evidently also only knew the male sex of his species, and it is possible that the female insect differs in the shape of the antennae. In the present insect a close examination of these parts proves them to consist of 13 joints, the terminal one or appendage being here much longer than in any other Phytophagous insect with which I am acquainted. Chapuis has described a species of Xenarthra from Abyssinia of which I possess a specimen ; this species, however, belongs to an entirely different genus. XENARTHRA LEWISI, sp. nov. (Plate XI. fig. 10.) Entirely testaceous, tbe two last joints of the antennse black. |
