68 | Mr. W. S. Macrzay on the Structure of the Tarsus 
ing it gives superior strength and solidity to that foundation 
upon which it is constructed : in fact, it seems always to give 
rise to observations even more beautiful than those from which 
it has resulted. Thus it was, that in attempting a natural ar- 
rangement of the insects collected in Java by Dr. Horsfield, I 
discovered that the more deeply I penetrated into the science of 
affinities, the more broken up was the tarsal system. Still, with 
that respect which we naturally indulge for notions generally 
adopted, I have confined myself in the first number of the 
Annulosa Javanica to my individual observations*, without ven- 
turing to suppose that the French school of entomologists and 
their followers could be essentially wrong in the very ground- 
work of their favourite system. Although my confidence in the 
observations of these naturalists was far from being so implicit 
as it had been, the reader of the first sixty pages of the above- 
mentioned work will perceive that, instead of attacking the divi- 
sions of Dimera, Trimera, &c. generally, I contented myself - 
with proving my affinities as it were in spite of them ; as, for 
instance, where I admit the Erotyli, generally speaking, to be 
tetramerous, while proving their immediate affinities to be pen- 
tamerous. I had scarcely, however, corrected the press of the 
first number of that work, when Captain P. P. King, R. N. one 
of those enterprising and accomplished navigators who at the 
present moment confer so much honour on our country, requested 
me to examine the insects which he had collected during his late 
expedition to survey the coasts of New Holland. Among the 
new forms of Coleoptera in this collection I found a pentamerous 
insect, which I have since named Megamerus Kingiit, and 
* See Ann. Jav. p. 40. 
+ For the characters of this genus and of Carpophagus, see Narrative of a Survey 
of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, by Capt. P. P. King, R.N. 
Appendix, p. 447, 448. tab. B. fig. 1 and 9. 
which 
