228 — MR. CURTIS ON HYPOCEPHALUS, A GENUS OF COLEOPTERA. 
of their agency, but at all events of disturbing forces, which have apparently succeeded 
one another from the beginning of the world, and are active still. We ought not there- 
fore to be more surprised at finding systems not to be perfect, than we are to find that 
sound is not free from discord, nor form from distortion. 
Perfection seems to be equivalent to harmony ; and this as regards form, which most 
concerns us at present, was best understood by the Greeks. It consists of a combination 
of parts, whose relative proportions are so perfectly in harmony in every respect, that the 
object becomes pleasing to the eye, even when uncultivated ; it leads the mind to the 
contemplation of a type of grace and beauty exceeding our daily experience, and thus the 
Grecian sculpture has become the standard of taste. The human heart is greatly affected 
by harmony: Poetry, Music and Painting bear ample testimony to its influence. Order 
and arrangement are component parts of harmony, for without them no system could 
exist. | 
A knowledge therefore of the component members of bodies and the harmonious com- 
bination of them is, or ought to be, the basis of all arrangements, and the closer we keep 
this in view the more true to nature, and the more satisfactory will the system be, because 
it will make everything subservient to true affinities. But in our progress to establish a 
system we are sure to find disturbing forces, producing aberrant types of form, which like 
discordant notes in music, will not chime in anywhere ; they are too flat for some chords, 
too sharp for others, and are thought to be anything but consistent with our notions 
of what is natural. Now to this description of animals belongs the anomalous beetle 
which Mr. White introduced to us, and which he has been so obliging as to allow me to 
examine at my leisure. It has received the name of Hypocephalus, and resembles so many 
individual members of different families, yet agreeing with none, that it has from its first 
discovery been a subject of speculation, in which M. Desmarest, Dr. Gistl, Dr. Burmeister, 
M. Guérin-Méneville and Mr. Westwood have taken part. 
I should say, it has the head of a Tortoise, the tusks of a Walrus, the legs of a Kangaroo, 
and certainly the strength of a giant; probably a hundred times greater in proportion to 
its size than that of an Elephant. Amongst Insects it has been likened to the Mole- 
cricket, and so deceptive are analogies, that when I first beheld the Hypocephalus at 
Florence, I thought it was a gigantic Brenthus*. M. Desmarest considered it allied to 
the Silphide or Grave-digging beetles, and Dr. Burmeister and Mr. Westwood are agreed 
that it is allied to the Cerambycide. Were it not for the deficiency in the number of the 
palpi, there would be no difficulty in associating it with the Scaritide: the head and legs. 
being very like those of Pasimachus, and the antenn® being nearly those of Psammo- 
philus; whilst the robust legs, large head, ample postpectus and remote hind legs of 
Caladrowm (a New Holland Carabus) at once exhibit a great resemblancet. 
_ It is evident, in making any attempt to associate an aberrant form with a natural family, 
that great caution is necessary, not to be influenced by-analogy, beyond what it is worth, 
* It is remarkable that some of the Brenthide have the hinder angles of the head produced in the male, as in 
Arrhenodes, where they form lobes, smaller in proportion, but of the same character as those exhibited in Hypoce- 
phalus, which would altogether indicate a similarity of economy. 
+ Vide also Clivina, and Broscus; and Promecoderus has quite the form of a pigmy Hypocephalus. 
