540 REVISION OF THE GENERA COLPOCHILA, ETC, 



examined the types and in his " Catalogue de la Collection Ento- 

 mologique (Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris)" placed three 

 of them under the name Sericesthis, along with four new species 

 then described (aureorufa, rugosiceps, pruinosa and glabra)' 

 and two species fsericans and layiguida) which had been in the 

 interval described by Dr. Erichson (Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte, 

 1842) as forming a new genus which he (Dr. Erichson) called 

 Scitala. In 1842 Hope (Ann. Nat. Hist. IX) had increased the 

 difficulties of Sericesthis by attributing to it a species (Gouldi) 

 which he supposed to be genei'ically identical with Boisduval's 

 species of Sericesthis but which was in reality very different being 

 congeneric with species for which in the next year Dr. Erichson 

 proposed the name Colpochila. In 1855 Dr. Burmeister published 

 his admirable work on the LamelUcomia (Vol. IV) and in it he 

 recognised the generic identity of three of Boisduval's species of 

 Sericesthis with the species which Erichson had subsequently 

 called Scitala, and referred the other two (one of them doubtfully, 

 and certainly wrongly) to genera which had been formed subse- 

 quently to Sericesthis ; but nevertheless he suppressed the name 

 Sericesthis in favour of Scitala, apparently on the ground that 

 there was no formal description of Sericesthis as a genus (he does 

 not seem to have been aware how Hope had complicated the 

 question as he does not mention S. Gouldi, Hope) and further for 

 the remarkal»le i-eason that two of Boisduval's specie's of Sericesthis 

 were congeneric with species for which new generic names had 

 been subsequently pr-ovided. In 1856 M. Lacordaire came upon 

 the scene with the Lamellicorn volume of that incomparable work 

 the " Genera des Coleopteres" and without any distinct statement 

 of his reasons for doing so rejjrodaced Dr. Burmeister's conclusions. 

 Here the matter stands at present, the name Scitala being thus 

 triumphant and Sericesthis having been suppressed. But I venture 

 to think nevertheless that it is not as it should be, and that 

 Sericesthis must be restored. The state of the case, admitted by 

 both Dr. Burmeister and jNI. Lacordaire, is that Melolontha 

 pruinosa, Dalm., was the earliest named species of the genus, and 

 that it was also the first to receive a generic name distinsuishinsr 



