Mr. A. Murray^s Monograph of the genus Catops. 3 



Fourcroy placed the only one he knew under Peltis^ Panzer 

 under HelopSy Frohlich under Luperus, Fabricius under Cistela 

 and Hydrophilus, Marsham under Mordella, and Linnaeus (pos- 

 sibly) under Chrysomela. Latreille was the first who in his 

 ' Precis des Caracteres Generiques des Insectes/ established the 

 genus under the name of Choleva. This was in 1802, and about 

 two years after it was also recognized first by PaykuU, and after- 

 wards by Knoch, who each gave it another name — Knoch that 

 of Ptomaphagus which was adopted by Illiger, and Paykull that 

 of Catops which was adopted by Fabricius, and has been retained 

 by most subsequent authors. By the rule of priority therefore 

 the name shonld be Choleva, but I am glad that I have a suffi- 

 cient apology for not disturbing the almost universally adopted 

 name of Catops. Latreille himself appears at first only to have 

 applied his name to one section of the genus. This appears from 

 his ' Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces et des Lisectes,' where in 

 speaking of his constituting the genus, he says, " Its appearance, 

 says GeofFroy, resembles that of the Mordellce, that is to say, it 

 has long legs with which it walks as if it limped. It is from 

 that character that I have taken my generic denomination : 

 Choleva in Greek means ' lame.^ " The long legs here referred to 

 apply to the first section of the genus, which was subsequently 

 erected into a separate genus by Stephens, and may, I think, be 

 properly maintained as a subgenus, to which Latreille's name 

 may be restricted. 



The number of species at first described was small. Latreille 

 in his ^ Hist. Nat.^ only describes three, and in his ^ Genera 

 Crustaceorum et Insectorum,' published in 1807, he describes 

 five. He there breaks the genus into two groups, one corre- 

 sponding to the subgenus Choleva, of which he describes the 

 species agilis and angustatus, auct., and the other including the 

 rest of the genus. 



Gyllenhal in 1808 published six species in the first volume of 

 his * Insecta Suecica.' 



It is unnecessary to enter into any examination of the syno- 

 nymy of the species described by these authors. Their descrip- 

 tions are for the most part too vague and applicable to too many 

 species subsequently described to allow us to rely greatly upon 

 them. Gyllenhal in his 4th volume, which was not published 

 till 1827, acknowledges that in his 1st volume he had included 

 five diff*erent species under one name. 



Mr. Spence was the first author who brought the genus into 

 something like order. 



In his Monograph (pubUshed in the Linnsean Society^s 

 Transactions in 1815) he divided the genus into three main 



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