in the Tetramerous and Trimerous Coleoptera. 69 
which at first puzzled me not a little as to its natural affinities. 
On dissecting it, however, and comparing it with the genus Sa- 
gra on one side, and on the other with a New Holland insect 
allied to Bruchus, which, from the circumstance of its being 
found on plants of the genus Banksia, I have called Carpophagus 
Banksia, Y ascertained in some degree its natural place. But the 
Megamerus was pentamerous; while Sagra, leading off to the 
Linnean genera Cerambyx and Chrysomela, and while Bruchus, 
leading off to Curculio, were both recorded as tetramerous. It 
was, however, observable that the tarsus of my pentamerous 
insect differed in no other respect from that of Sagra and 
Bruchus; that is, from the tarsus of the majority of M. Latreille's 
section of Tetramera. The three first joints of its tarsus were in 
short dilated into species of cushions, of which the last was bi- 
lobed, while the fourth joint was short, slender, obconical, and. 
forming at first sight one piece with the fifth ; so that the three 
first articulations formed a dilated part of the tarsus, and the two 
last a filiform part. Had it not been for the presence of the 
fourth joint and its remarkable size in the Megamerus Kingii, 1 
might indeed have described its tarsus in the very words which 
in the Régne Animal are applied to this part of the foot in the 
Linnean groups Curculio, Cerambyz, and Chrysomela : ** Le des- 
sous des trois premiers articles des tarses est spongieux ou garni 
des brosses avec le penultième divisé profondement en deux 
lobes." But on examining carefully Sagra and Carpophagus, 
these genera will be found pentamerous in the same manner as 
Megamerus. May it not then be possible, we naturally ask, that 
the majority of insects hitherto called tetramerous, are in reality 
pentamerous insects? An accurate examination of any Lin- 
nean Cerambyz, Curculio, or Chrysomela will prove it to be so, 
and that, in fact, the accurate description of the tarsus in these 
three 
