MISCELLANEA ENTOMOLOGICA, No. IV. 



"THE HEL^IDES." 



By William Macleay, F.L.S., &:c. 



In this Paper I undertake the revision of a group of the large 

 Family of Tenebrionidfe, remarkable for its eccentricity of form. 

 Under the name of " Hela^ides, " Lacordaire in his " Genei-a 

 Coleopt. Vol. V." includes some genera of Heteromerous beetles, 

 all more or less resembling in general characters the typical genus 

 Helceus, and all exclusively of Australian parentage. 



Until the year 1842, but little was known of these insects, a 

 very few species only having been described by Olivier, Kirby, 

 and Boisduval, but iu that year a monograph of the group was 

 published by the Marquis de Breme, entitled " Essai INIonogr. et 

 Iconogr. de la Tribu des Cossyphides." In this monograph the 

 number of species noticed or described, amounted to 37, spread 

 over four genera. In the year 18 4G (1) the Rev. F. W. Hope 

 published descriptions of eight additional species. Since then the 

 chief additions to the group have been made by Mr. Pascoe, and 

 the number of his contiibutions may be inferred from the fact 

 that the number of species recorded in Masters' Catalogue of 

 Australian Coleoptera, published last year in the Proceedings of the 

 Linnean Society of New South Wales, had risen to 97. 



The characters of the Heheides, in addition to those common to 

 all the Tenebrionidaj, are given below. 



(1) Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. Vol. V. p. 52. 



