a 
Sectional Characters of the Genus Lucanus. 273 
whole genus, nor had it ever been conjectured that in some 
species the differences exhibited by these spines afforded sexual 
characteristics, although the extensive employment of the character 
amongst, the Cetonudce and Goliath beetles had shown it to possess 
both sectional and sexual distinctions. 
The number of joints in the club of the antenne at first sug- 
gested itself, and indeed it had been already proposed by MacLeay, 
as a primary sectional character ; but this, in addition to the diffi- 
culty in its employment, owing to the greater or less development 
of the joint preceding the clava, was shown to be inefficient, by 
separating species which agreed together in their entire habitus. 
Its employment also was found to be opposed by the number of 
these tibial spines, which brought together in the most natural 
manner the great majority of the species. 
By the employment of this character the genus Lucanus is 
divisible into three great groups: first, those with two or three 
spines on the outside of the posterior and intermediate tibia, 
amongst which are most of the Jargest species in the family, in- 
cluding our well-known stag beetle, which may in fact be con- 
sidered as the type of the family; second, those with only one 
spine in the middle of the four posterior tibize in both sexes, in 
which section are brought together the gigantic species of Dorcus 
from the East, the stall typical Dorci of moderate climes, and the 
group which Mr. MacLeay has called Agus, but of which no 
Entomologist has ever been able to lay down characters sufficient 
to separate it from various other sections of Lucanide ; third, an 
extensive group of species, being nearly the half of the whole genus, 
which either possess no spines to the four posterior tibia, or have 
one small one developed in the middle of these tibize in the females 
alone ; of the species which belong to the first of these two subsec- 
tions with simple tibiee, Lucanus metallifer of Boisduval, LZ. Bur- 
meistert, Hope, Ent. Trans.; L. bicolor, F.; Delessertui, Guérin; 
Saundersit, Hope (bicolor, Saunders); Baladeva, Hope; glabratus, 
De Haan, &c., may be mentioned ; whilst of those which have the 
tibize of the males simple and those of the females 1-spined, may be 
cited L. Downesii, Hope, Z. 'Tr.; L. cinnamomeus, Guerin; L. 
dorsalis, Erichs., which is probably the female of L. cavifrons, 
Burm. MS., and a considerable number of new species from the 
East and Africa contained in Mr. Hope’s Collection. 
Sp. 1. Lucanus faunicolor, Hope. (Pl. XX. fig. 1.) 
L. mandibulis magnis porrectis, dente valido ante alteroque 
VOL. Iv. T 
