YPHIDRIA, _Latr._

1. XYPHIDRIA RUFIPES. _X._ nigra; mandibulis, antennarum scapo,
pedibusque ferrugineis; alis hyalinis et iridescentibus.

_Female._ Length 4 lines. Black and shining; the vertex highly polished;
the front from the posterior ocelli forwards closely punctured and
opake; the mandibles, scape, and basal joint of the flagellum
ferruginous. The thorax anteriorly punctured and opake, posteriorly
shining, and with a few punctures at the base of the scutellum; wings
hyaline and iridescent, the nervures black, the extreme base of the
wings and the tegulae pale testaceous; the legs pale ferruginous, with
the claws of the tarsi darker. Abdomen: the base of the segments
depressed and very delicately and closely punctured, subopake; the
apical half highly polished and shining; beneath obscurely rufo-piceous.

_Hab._ Aru.

Gen. TREMEX, _Jurine_.

1. TREMEX INSIGNIS. _T._ nigro-purpureus; abdominis fasciis basalibus
albis; alis nigris cupreo nitentibus.

_Female._ Length 11 lines. Obscure steel-blue, with shades of green,
purple and violet; the head and thorax punctured; the prothorax with an
oblique smooth shining space on each side; the wings very dark brown,
with a brilliant coppery effulgence. The base of the abdomen opake,
velvety, purple-black; the first segment with a transverse
cream-coloured fascia in the middle, the second very slightly whitish at
its base; the rest of the abdomen is highly polished, and has a
scattered, short, black pubescence.

_Hab._ Aru.

Note on Two Insect-products from Persia. By DANIEL HANBURY, Esq., F.L.S.

[Read December 16th, 1858.]

In the month of June last, my friend Professor Guibourt, of Paris, laid
before the Academie des Sciences[G] some account of a remarkable
substance called _Trehala_, the cocoon of a Curculionidous insect found
in Persia, where, as well as in other parts of the East, it enjoys some
celebrity as the basis of a mucilaginous drink administered to the sick.

Specimens of this substance, as well as of another insect-product of
Persia, together with the insects themselves, were presented a few years
ago to the British Museum by W. K. Loftus, Esq., who obtained them while
engaged by the British Government on the question of the Turco-Persian
boundaries.

The precise determination of the species of these insects being a matter
of doubt, they have at my request been lately examined by M. Jekel, of
Paris, an entomologist with whom the famil