a Family of Coleopterous Insects. 613 



remark, with some degree of astonishment, that after the ob- 

 servations of Mr. MacLeay in the Annulosa Java?iica above 

 referred to, Mr. Curtis should have stated, that " we cannot 

 help expressing some surprise, that out of the many systems 

 that have been proposed, none should have released Myceto- 

 phagiis from its present unnatural situation, viz. from the Xylo- 

 phagi or Trogositarii of Latreille." The Systematic Catalogue, 

 and Illustrations of British Entomology, of Mr. Stephens may 

 also be consulted, in which the first attempt has been made to 

 arrange these various genera in accordance with Mr. MacLeay 's 

 views, although it may perhaps be considered that this arrange- 

 ment has been made upon general considerations rather than 

 upon strict analytical examination and dissection. It should, 

 however, be constantly borne in mind, that the characters pre- 

 sented by the larvae of these various genera will tend in a great 

 degree to establish their affinities upon a sure foundation, and 

 it is greatly to be regretted that so little is recorded concerning 

 them : hence arises the absolute necessity of attentively study- 

 ing and minutely recording the peculiarities of these preparatory 

 states whenever opportunity presents itself. 



Taking, therefore, the preceding observations into considera- 

 tion, it is evident that in these groups Nature appears to have 

 disregarded all decided regularity in the number of the joints 

 of the tarsi ; and hence, if the majority of Latreille's Xylophagi 

 should be removed, — as it appears to me they ought to be, — to 

 a situation in the stirps Necrophaga, the Paussida must also 

 accompany them, notwithstanding the absence of the terminal 

 clavation of the antennae; but between the Paussida and the true 

 ScolytidcE (which are certainly most intimately allied to the Cur- 

 culionidcB,) or the Bostrichidce* (compare Mr. Curtis's Dissections 



* I exclude from this family (as Latreille indeed has done in some of his earlier works) 

 the genus Cis, which has also, in my opinion, no immediate affinity with Mycetophagus. 

 The genus Bontrichus Geoffroy {Apate Fabr.) is the typical form of this family. 



of 



