Anatomy of the Male Genital Tube in Coleoptera. 479 



mens for us. Mr. Hugh Scott of Cambridge University 

 assisted us in every way that we asked, 



Mr. G. C. Champion and Mr. C. J. Gahan have been 

 very good by helping us in the disagreeable task of 

 naming our heterogeneous matei'ial. 



As regards the taxonomical and phylogenetic portions 

 of the memoir it is desirable that we should say that they 

 are drawn up to display the part that a knowledge of the 

 fertilising structures should have in these two departments 

 of Coleopterology. The senior author has for many years 

 taken an interest in the taxonomy and phylogeny of 

 Coleoptera, and it would therefore be absurd to pretend 

 that, apart from consideration as to the sexual organs, he 

 is in complete ignorance as to the bearings of other 

 branches of anatomy, of physiology, of ethology and of 

 ontogeny on the two departments mentioned. But the 

 junior author is comparatively a recent student of these 

 departments ; and the senior author, therefore, gave him 

 a free hand in drawing up the tables, and has modified 

 them but little. They represent, therefore, fairly well the 

 results that may be obtained in taxonomy and phylogeny 

 from a preliminary study of the male genital tube. We 

 hope that we have made it clear, in other parts of the 

 paper, that our work is only a very imperfect introduction 

 to this comparatively narrow field of inquiry. But we 

 believe the subject will prove to be of great importance 

 when combined with the results derived through other 

 lines of investigation. There is one point, however, in 

 the memoir that has not been based on study of the 

 aedeagus, viz. the families we have made use of. Though 

 we shall have in the course of this memoir to propose 

 several changes as to the families of Coleoptera, it must 

 not be supposed that the families here dealt with have 

 been decided on from the point of view of the structure 

 of the genital tube. The forms studied were selected in 

 the first instance simply by our desire to study these 

 structures throughout the whole Order. We may, how- 

 ever, say that though certain changes will have to be 

 made, yet our impression is that most of the families at 

 present in use in Coleopterology will have their validity 

 substantiated by a continuance of this study. 



The second part of our morphological section deals with 

 the nature of the male organs; and under the heading 

 Phytophagoidea in the section phylogeny some more 



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