608 Mr. J. O. Westwood on the Paiissida^ 



family, — I 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 Diet. d'Hist. Nat. vol. xxv. p. 57 : 

 "Vainement chercherions nous dans tout I'ordre des Coleop- 

 t^res un genre qui nous ofFre des caract^res 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 Faussus 

 constituting the final entomological labour of that great man, 

 whose name we have adopted as our own. 



But few remarks are requisite upon the hislorjj of the family. 

 The genus Paussus was established in the Dissertationes Aca- 

 demicce 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 Seolitaires, in his Ilhtoire 

 Natnrelle ^-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 clav4 integra, inflate" 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 Sfc. vol. iii. p. 1, and Considerations G6n6' 



rales 



