Genera of the Cossonidce. 429 
various generic cliaracters miglit have been more easily, 
and completehj, tabulated ; but since in that case a con- 
siderable number of groups which I am satisfied have no 
real affinity with each other Avould have been brought into 
juxta-position, I have preferred to sacrifice even convenience 
in identification to the more important princi23le of a cor- 
rect adjustment of the several types.* On this account 
it is, that while acknowledging the exact number of the 
funiculus-joints as of primary signification, I have not 
allowed it to over-ride (in a few exceptional instances) a 
combination of other features which more than coimter- 
balance it in structural importance ; and hence amongst 
the true Cossonides, in which that organ is essentially 
7-articulate, I have admitted one genus ( Tetracoptus) in 
which the fiiniculus is composed of four joints, two 
(^Pentamimus and Tomolips) in which it is made-up of 
five, and one (^Hexartlirum) in which it consists of six, — 
for it would be simj^ly preposterous to include the first of 
these amongst the Dry oplithor ides (with which in other 
respects it has absolutely nothing in common), and the 
second and third amongst the Pentarthrides , or to asso- 
ciate the fourth (which belongs to the sub-Hylastideous, 
asperated types) with the anomalous and more or less 
fossorial Onycholipides — in Avhicli the body is pallid and 
somewhat hairy, the tibial hook obsolete, and the tarsi 
strictly tetramerous. Moreover Lacordaire has himself 
acknowledged this principle by placing Hexarthrum in 
the same situation as I have done, namely towards the 
close of the subfamily Cossonides ; and it is a method 
indeed which is acted upon, more or less, in nearly every 
department of the Coleoptera. 
With respect to the singular cluster of forms which I have 
brought together under the Onycholipides, they might 
Avell be supposed, if viewed per se, to pertain to some totally 
distinct (and perhaps as yet undefined) family of the 
Bhynchophora; but they are nevertheless so unmistake- 
ably connected on the one hand, by means of Halorliyn- 
clius and Pentatemnus , with the Pentarthrides, and on the 
* Finding it next to impossible in the subfamily Cossofiides to tabulate 
the characters of more than a small number of the very numerous genera 
(whilst, at the same time, adhering to what I believe to be the natural 
sequence of the latter), I have, instead, and as a slight assistance towards 
the identification, noted a few diagnostic features of each successive group; 
and, as a still further aid to the eye, I have cited the particular country to 
which the sevei'al genera are peculiar, or in which they more especially 
predominate. 
II 2 
