BY ARTHUR M. LEA. 



591 



the apex. It is only a few of the species, however, that we are able 

 to pair." The remark italicised is certainly a mistake. I have 

 taken a great many pairs in copula and could readily distinguish 

 the sexes. These circumstances induce me to think that perhaps 

 Mr. Pascoe has described the sexes in several instances as being 

 distinct species. I have gone very carefully into the question, 

 and have been irresistibly forced to the conclusion that the whole 

 of the names given in the 2nd section appertain to spinipennis, 

 Fahrs., and as this conclusion, if correct, as I have no doubt it is, 

 necessitates the elimination of seventeen names from the Catalogue 

 I propose to give my reasons in full for thinking so. 



I have personally collected over much of the ground traversed 

 by Mr. Frank Duboulay (from whom Mr. Pascoe received the 

 majority of his specimens) in the Champion Bay district; I have 

 had many specimens brought in by the various inspectors and 

 correspondents of the Bureau of Agriculture; and I have seen the 

 collections of other entomologists and of several museums; but I 

 have never seen more than one species of Catasarcus having four 

 tubercular spines on the disc of the elytra. Had the species been 

 as numerous as Mr. Pascoe thought them, I think I could not have 

 failed to meet with more than one. 



In his supposed species, Mr. Pascoe appears to have had but 

 few specimens to judge from, as in only four — intermedms, 

 humerosus, bellicosits, and cicatricosus — does he state or imply 

 that he had more than one specimen; and in spim^jennis, niargini- 

 spiriis, and carbo he distinctly implies that his descriptions were 

 taken from unique specimens. 



Mr. Pascoe remarks :— " But the best characters of the species 

 are afforded by the elytra, only, though these are obvious enough 

 to the eye when compared with one another, they are extremely 

 difficult to define; the sculpture is nearly always of the same 

 type, seriate- or sulcate-punctate, with tubercular elevations 

 between; its peculiarities often masked by a covering of scales, 

 the absence of which, in worn individuals, serves to throw a doubt 



on their validity The tirst pair (median [of spines] 



are generally near the middle of the elytra, calculating the 



