Bradycellus Excultus

Thomas Vernon Wollaston published this drawing in his book ‘Insecta Maderensia’ in 1854. In the book he thanks Westwood for providing the illustrations, ‘Particularly, however, would I draw attention to the valuable help which I have received from J. O. Westwood, Esq., whose pencil has been so elaborately employed in the figures which I am thus enabled to attach, and by whom many of the minutest of the dissections were accomplished, — with a degree of delicacy, moreover, to which I did not myself at the commencement of this Work (though I have since succeeded in anatomizing the larger portion of them, likewise) lay claim.’

45, Bradycellus excultus, Woll. (Tab. II. fig. 4.). Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘A most distinct and beautiful Bradycellus, and apparently of the greatest rarity, being confined, so far as I have hitherto observed, to remote upland spots more or less difficult of access. I have taken it, during the winter and early spring, towards the upper extremity of the Ribeiro de Santa Luzia, especially from amongst loose stones at the roots of the vegetation at the immediate base of the lofty perpendicular rocks : and in July 1850 I captured it sparingly in the bed of a dried-up stream in the elevated region of the Fanal, more than 5000 feet above the sea : and a specimen has been recently communicated to me by M. Rousset, from the Pico d'Arribentao, above Funchal.’