32 L-'niy. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF INSECT MONSTROSITIES. No. 1.— ON A 

 MONSTROUS STAG BEETLE (LUCANUS ELAPRUSJ. 



BY PROF. J. O. WESTWOOD, M.A., F.L.S., &c. 



In sending to the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine the first of 

 a proposed series of notices of monstrous insects, it may, perhaps, be 

 thought advisable that I should offer a few preliminary observations 

 on this class of specimens, and upon the classifications that have been 

 founded upon them. By those persons who, like myself, believe in the 

 permanence of species, of course, every individual which differs in a more 

 or less marked manner from the normal condition and appearance of 

 the species to which it belongs must, strictly speaking, be considered 

 as a monster ; a term, however, which, in a scientific point of view, 

 requires definition, since the amount of aberration from the specific 

 type varies so greatly, that it has been proposed by some writers 

 to restrict the term monster to those more important deviations by 

 which the normal actions of the entire animal, or of some one or 

 other of its organs, are materially affected. 



Hence all those instances which readily occur to the mind of the 

 student, and which are ordinarily termed varieties, resulting from 

 difference of size, shape or colour of markings, and even the outline 

 of the wings, or the alteration in position of the veins, the greater or 

 less amount of punctures, or other variation of the sculpture, must be 

 necessarily excluded from a memoir on monsters. The question as to 

 the real jDosition of certain varieties, which appear to assume a constant 

 character, resulting either from variation in locality,* or times of 

 appearancet has recently become one of much importance in i-eference 

 to the possible formation of distinct local species. 



We must, consequently, restrict our attention to those more 

 decided cases of organic deviation from the structure of the tpye of a 

 given species, which result in an incapacity for the due performance 

 of the general or special functions of the individual, or of its special 

 organs. It would be tedious to detail the systems of classification of 

 monsters which have been, from time to time, proposed by Licetue, 

 Iluber, Malacarne, Buffon, Ijlumenbach, Bonnet, Meckel, Breschet, 

 Illiger, Isidore Geoffrey Saint Ilihiire (whose 'Histoire generale ct 

 particuliere des Anomalies' is the great text work on the subject), or 



* Polyommatus Ariaxerxet, Solmacis, and Agcstis, niMy bo cited as an instance; a still more 

 remarkalile instance is presented by the vaiicd forms of the females of Papilio Merope, in Mada- 

 gascar and Africa, as proved by Mr. J. P. M. Weale (Trans. Eut. Soc. Lond., 1874, p. 131). 



t A remarkable instance of this "seasonal ]jolymorphism " occurs in Papilio A jax. •which, 

 according to ilr. Edwards, aiipears in early spiing, under a tonn which has been termed P. H'alshii ; 

 iu the late spring, as P. I'tlamoniJes ; and in summer and autumn, as P. Marcellus (Scuddcr, lu 

 American Naturalist for May, ISTi}. , 



