SSi Some remarkable Forms in Entomology/, 



given a very full generic and specific description of the insect, 

 and has stated that it was brought to Dr. Grant, surgeon on 

 board his Majesty's ship Forte, on the South American station, 

 by a native, who informed him that he found it on a resinous 

 shrubby plant, in the Island of Chiloe, which is separated from 

 the main land at Valparaiso by a very narrow channel. M. 

 Dupont informs me that two specimens of the insect have 

 lately been received in Paris. The following extracts from 

 a letter addressed by myself to Mr. Stephens, dated 12th 

 of January, 1831, comprise some of the observations made 

 during the progress of my examination and delineation of the 

 insect : — "^ 



" The golden bronze upon the elytra, the burnished golden 

 green of the raised centre of the thorax, and the varying 

 colours of its sides and of the lateral spines, together form an 

 assemblage of tints exceeding in intensity every thing which I 

 have hitherto met with in entomology. In the structure of 

 many of its organs, equally striking peculiarities present them- 

 selves. The spines which arm the hinder margins of the 

 thorax, and the whorl of hairs at the tip of the long basal 

 joint of the antennae, are characters which we look for in vain 

 amongst the known genera of Zyuc^nidae, and which to my- 

 self are of great interest, as tending to prove the correctness 

 of the opinion which I have advanced in the last number of 

 the Zoological Journal, of the intimate affinity between the 

 stag and Capricorn beetles, iucanidae and Cerambycidae. 

 The furcate anterior produced part of the head (clypeus), the 

 distinct existence of four eyes, the grfeat strength of the fore 

 legs, the extraordinary elongation of the basal joint of the 

 antennae, and the whorl of hairs above mentioned which or- 

 nament its tip (for I cannot imagine of what service it can be 

 to the animal), are all characters of a very interesting kind. 

 But it is in the structure of the mouth that the entomologist 

 will derive the greatest interest. The upper jaws, or mandibles, 

 (which, in our common powerful stag beetle, are scarcely 

 longer than the head and thorax,) here acquire the length of 

 the whole body; but although they are very strong, and 

 evidently capable of biting very sharply at their base, towards 

 the middle they become flattened, and at the tip they are 

 deflexed and incurved, crossing over each other, so that this 

 portion of the jaws can scarcely be of much service to the 

 insect, when employed in the ordinary use of mandibles. 

 Their very tips are also bent backwards ; and here again we 

 are at a loss to imagine for what purpose this last peculiarity 

 has been bestowed upon the animal, since we can scarcely 

 imagine (as a celebrated French entomologist has done re- 



