a Family of Coleopterous Insects. 627 
which I have subsequently introduced from his splendid collec- 
tion under the name of P. excavatus, was observed by his corre- 
spondent at Senegal, by whom the insect was captured, to make 
several repeated discharges of smoke, accompanied by a slight 
noise similar to that produced by the Bombadier Beetle (Brachi- 
nus), whence M. Dupont named it P. crepitans. I cannot, how- 
ever, help imagining that some mistake must have arisen with 
respect to this peculiarity. Afzelius, who captured several spe- 
cimens of the genus, has recorded nothing of the kind, and it may 
reasonably be doubted whether the internal structure of M. Du- 
pont's insect would so far differ from that of the other species as 
to enable it to produce these repeated discharges. Having con- 
sulted M. Latreile upon the subject, whose opinion corre- 
sponds with my own, I have not hesitated to propose another 
specific name for the insect in question in lieu of that proposed 
by the possessor of the specimen, which, but for the circum- 
stances stated above, I should with pleasure have adopted. 
The following observations comprise the details most worthy 
of notice regarding the history of this singular genus, upon 
which but few authors have treated. The genus was established 
under the name Paussus in the last entomological dissertation 
of the Academy of Upsal, under the presidency of Linnzus, the 
title whereof is ** Dig: Insectorum quas Preside DD. Car. v. 
Linne proposuit Andreas Dahl, Westragothus, Upsaliz 1775.” 
The only species described and figured was P. microcephalus, | 
which Linnzus had received in a collection of North American 
and African insects from Dr. Fothergill of London. In 1781, 
Thunberg described in the Swedish Transactions two new spe- 
cies of the genus discovered by himself in South Africa in the 
year 1772 (and which he had previously considered as forming 
a new genus), under the names Pausus lineatus and P. ruber, the 
former of which alone was indifferently figured. Fabricius in 
the 
