from the neighbourhood of the town, are both recognised by Mr,
Wollaston as imported through the medium of commerce, he having
found them also at Madeira and the Cape Verdes in the warehouses.
and stores. They have doubtless reached St. Helena in bags ot rice
or casks of flour.
R. pusilla, F.
Fam. Tomicidm.
Tomicus, Lat.
T. semulus, Woll.—This insect, Mr. Wollaston considers, may
he an indigenous one; but as I only met with one specimen and
have ho recorded locality to it, 1 am unable to say whether it was
taken from the high or the low land.
Fam. Uylesinidce.
Hylurgus, Lat.
H. ligniperda, l ’ab.—A. dark brown, almost black, Beetle, a
quarter of an inch in length, very common amongst the pine or fir
trees on the high lands, about Plantation, and other localities of
the same altitude. I t is an European insect, which, Mr. Wollaston
says, has been also naturalized in the Azorean, Madeiran, and
Canarian groups.
Fam. Curculionidte.
SUB-FAM. COSSONIDES.
Stenoscelis, Woll.
S. hylastoides, Woll.—An almost black, cylindrical-shaped
Beetle, one-sixth of an inch in length, taken from the wood of
decaying branches of trees on the high land. Mr. Wollaston says
of it : “ The examples which I originally described of this curious
insect, and for the reception of which I found it necessary to
establish a new genus, were taken by the late Mr. Bewicke, m 1860*
at the Cape of Good H o p e ; and it is an interesting fact, therefore*
geographically, that (judging from an extensive series which was
captured by Mr. Melliss) the species would appear to be common
also at St. Helena. After giving, in the Journal of Entomology, a
lengthened diagnosis of the group, I added: ‘ So very closely does the
present insect, at first sight, assimilate Hylastes, that I had regarded
it, previous to a critical éxamination, as an abnormal member of that
group, in which the external edge of the tibiae was edentate. But,
on closer inquiry, it proves to be undoubtedly one of the Curcu-
lionidm, the entire structure of its slender, toothless, apically uncinate
tibiae, and its unreceived tarsi, assigning it to that family. From
Myncolus, however, to which it is clearly related, it recedes completely
in its excessively short, broad, thick, and subtriangular
rostrum, in its very abbreviated and differently constructed antennas
' (which have apparently no lateral scrobs for thè reception of their
scape), in its minute punctiform scutellum, its more globose,
exposed head, and in its longer feet; and I should consider that the
Madeiran Hexarthrum is perhaps its nearest described ally, though
in that genus the funiculus is only 6-articulate, whereas in Stenoscelis
it is 7 ” .
Microxylobius, Chevr.
Of this genus Mr. Wollaston writes : “ The excessive importance
at St. Helena (where it is manifestly aboriginal, and to which it
seems to be peculiar) of the little Curculionideous genus Microxylobius
induces me to enter more fully into its details, in this memoir,
than I should otherwise have, thought it necessary to do.” I t comprises
small black Beetles, varying from a twelfth to a quarter of an
inch in length, and generally so extremely bright and glossy as to be
easily distinguished from the other Beetles of the Island ; moreover,
they are chiefly confined to the native vegetation on the high land,
at an altitude of 2700 feet above the sea, where they may be found
abundantly in the stems and branches of the cabbage-trees ; some
few have extended down to an altitude of about 1700 feet, and taken
up their abode in oak, loquat, and other exotic trees ; but i t is fully
manifest that, with the cabbage-trees, they form a portion of the
aboriginal occupants of the Island.
*1*1 . westwoodii, Chevr., of which Mi'. W ollaston writes :
“ This species being the one for which the genus was originally
founded by M. Chevrolat, I have no choice but to regard it as the
type of the group ; and it is therefore extremely unfortunate that I
* In a subsequent paper on the Genera of the Cossonidse, Trans. Ent. Soo. 1873, Pt. IT.
Oct d 520 521 Mr Wollaston separates this genus into three, placing M. cossomides under
a new <*enus named Lamprochrus., WoU., and M. chewolatii, M. comcollis, M. mamlicornis,
M. terebrans, M. obliterate, M. debilis, and M. anguste under the genus Acanthomerus,
Boheman: the others .remaining as Microxylobu.