608 Mr. J. O. Wzsrwoopn on the Pausside, 
family,— 1I considered that it might not be deemed uninteresting 
to extend my observations to the whole family, and which I 
trust will not be regarded as unworthy of attention, both from 
the great interest which the insects themselves possess from the 
extreme singularity of their structure, (for, as Latreille has 
observed in the Nouveau Dict. d'Hist. Nat. vol. xxv. p. 57: 
* Vainement chercherions nous dans tout l'ordre des Coléop- 
teres un genre qui nous offre des caractéres aussi bizarres et 
aussi insolites que les Paussus,") as well as from the circum- 
stance of the records of this Society already containing a va- 
luable paper by the learned Professor Afzelius upon the spe- 
cies known to him ; and from the opportunity thus afforded me 
of exhibiting the rapid strides which Entomology has since 
made ; and lastly, from the circumstance of the genus Paussus 
constituting the final entomological labour of that great man, 
whose name we have adopted as our own. 
But few remarks are requisite upon the his/ory of the family. 
The genus Paussus was established in the Dissertationes Aca- 
demice in the year 1775, and the genus Cerapterus by Swederus 
in the Swedish Transactions for 1788. These two genera con- 
tinued to be regarded as unconnected with other genera, or 
with each other, until Latreille inserted the former, as one of 
the genera composing the family Scolitaires, in his Histoire 
Naturelle &c. tom. xi. p. 204.—Afzelius, regarding only the 
genus Paussus, proposed for its reception in the Linnean Trans- 
actions, vol. iv. a distinct fifth section of the Coleoptera, cha- 
racterized ** Antennis clavà integra, inflata.” The genus Cera- 
pterus, however, remained unnoticed by entomologists until 
Donovan pointed out its affinity with Paussus in his work upon 
the Insects of New Holland; and Latreille, profiting by his 
observations, formed the two genera into a distinct family in the 
Genera Crustaceorum §c. vol, iii. p. 1, and Considerations Géné- 
l | rales 
