2 Mr. S. S. Saunders on 



Fam. Stylopites, Newm. (e) . 

 Fam. Stylopides, Lacord. (/) . 



The vexed question of the affinities of the 8tylopiclce, 

 can no longer be considered so difficult of solution as 

 formerly. Kirby^s first impression was, that his newly- 

 discovered Stylops " from its elytra (wfeich, however, 

 are placed in a very extraordinary situation, being fixed 

 to the sides of the thorax) , ought to be a Coleopterous 

 insect, '^although it seemed" to possess but little of the 

 general habit and character of that class " {g) . Subse- 

 quently, from an error of his draughtsman, in whom he 

 placed the utmost confidence [li) , he describes these 

 organs as " apparently attached to the coxse of the an- 

 terior pair of legs " (/) ; and again — " Elytra coxis pedum 

 anticorum, ut videtur, affixa" Qx) . Hence, while advert- 

 ing to this as " a circumstance most singular and without 

 parallel in the entomological world," he was not unnatu- 

 rally led to consider these insects as utterly irreconci- 

 lable with any of the existing Orders ; more especially 

 when unable to solve the difficulties of their mysterious 

 metamorphoses, and unconscious of any prevailing asso- 

 ciations, on the apparent absence of which he had been 

 prompted to dwell in the first instance. 



Had he however been aware that those appendages 

 were really mesothoracical organs ; had he known that 

 the little active hexapods since so frequently met with in 

 the larviform females, were in fact their own progeny, in 

 their primary form ; and that, moreover, from similar 

 minute pediculiform larvae many Coleoptera belonging to 

 the Bhipiphoridce and Mclo'idce are developed: it can 

 hardly be doubtful that Kirby himself would have been 

 fully persuaded that these circumstances furnished the 

 desired clue to their affinities. 



(e) Newman, " Zoologist," Londiui, 1847, p. 1792 ; Newman, idem, 

 Loudini, 1850, p. 2684 ; Schaum, Catal. Coleopt. Eur. Ed. la, Berolini, 

 1852. 



(/) Laeordaire, Gen. Coleopt. Tom. V. pars. 2, p. 634, 1859. 



[g-) Monogr. Apum. Angl. Vol. II. p. 112, 1802. 



(/i) Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., Vol. XI. p. 99, 1811-13 (Note). Kirby & 

 Speuce, lutrod. to Entomology, Vol. III. p. 589, 1826 (Note). 



(i) Trans. Linn. Soc, uhi supra, p. 98. 



Qt) Ibid, p. 111. 



