| OCR Text |
Show 278 REV. H. S. GORHAM ON [June 6, P h ilh e d o n u s ru g u lo su s, sp. 11. Niger, nitidus, pube erecta nigra vest it as ; prothorace rufo,plaga magna discoidali marginem basalem hand attingente nigra, parcius irregulariter punctato; elytris saturate cceruleis, ruguloso-coriaceis ; scutello nigro ; corpore infra cum pedibus nigris; antennis nigris, acute serratis. Long. 5'5 millim. $ . Mas, antennis longioribus, acute serratis, capite intra oct/Ion incequaliter impresso. Femina, antennis brevioribus, minus acute serratis, fronte plana. Hab. Willowmore, Cape Colony (jBrauns). Rather like P. sericeus. Head, mouth, antenna?, palpi, legs, and body beneath black. The head is uneven and impressed between the eyes, the base is nearly smooth and shining ; the antennae have the first three joints testaceous beneath, from the fourth to the tenth the joints are longer than wide, acutely produced at their inner apices. The thorax has a large black and square patch on the disk and front margin ; this is somewhat produced behind, but does not reach the hind margin; the disk is smooth in front, but punctured and rugose at the sides. The form is like that of P. sericeus, transverse, rounded at the sides and base, without angles ; finely margined, and a little elevated in front. The disk and the elytra are clothed with long upright black hairs. The elytra are of a deep violaceous or indigo-blue, uniformly rugulose ; the rugosities are tuberculous. They are widest a little before their apices, the apex broadly rounded. In addition to the black erect hairs there is a white, shining, pruinose pubescence, arranged in fascia? (but not very evidently so). The legs and underside are wholly jet-black. The male has the head unevenly impressed between the eyes, the antennae more acutely serrate, and of course the front tarsi four-jointed. The elytra cover the abdomen in all of the four specimens before me; in the female the segments of the abdomen when distended appear narrowly margined with red. H edonistes, gen. nov. Labrum corneum. Tarsi antici quinque-articidati; caput maris eroso-exdsum, femince fronte plana ; antennae maris articulo basali quinto et sexto ampliatis, septimo ad undecimum simplicibus ; femince articulis omnibus simplicibus. Hob. Africain meridionalem. A genus recalling by the curious sexual characters of the antennae in the male the genera Laius from Australia and Collops from the New World, and by its excavated and cornuted head in the male the genus Hedybius, with which it might have been associated; but I think although the enlarged fifth and sixth joints of the antennae are only a sexual character, it is one so similar to what is found in Lavas and Collops that it will be well to keep insects of this family possessing it in a separate |
