Mr. F. P. Pascoe on Spheerion and Mallocera, 477 
LXII.—WNotes on Spheerion and Mallocera. 
By Francis P. Pascosz, F.L.S., F.Z.S., late Pres. Ent. Soc., &c. 
Many of the tropical American genera of the Longicorn family 
Cerambycide are crowded with discrepant species, most of which, 
although undescribed, have manuscript or catalogue names in 
collections. As a rule, these species seem to have been referred 
to such of the comparatively few published genera to which they 
appear most approximate, without regard to their technical cha- 
racters. I have been recently examining Spherion and Mallo- 
cera, two allied genera belonging to the same subfamily as the 
typical Cerambyz, and I find under each of those names forms 
that could never be held together by any definitive formule. 
The following notes are only the results of the working out of 
my own limited number of examples, aided, however, by the 
examination of those in the British Museum, including M. 
Chevrolat’s, in which so many of the celebrated Baron Dejean’s 
“catalogue-types” are found. 
Mr. Newman’s genus Nephalius*, which has been regarded 
almost invariably as purely synonymous with Spherion, ought, 
I think, to be preserved for those of his species which have the 
elytra imperfectly embracing the abdomen, or, in other words, 
elytra without or with very slightly deflected sides. The 
type would then be N. cassus, and the genus would include 
N. serius and N. exutus; of his other species, N. amictus is un- 
known to me, and N. blandus is a true Spherion. 'The remain- 
ing species of Spherion which I have examined are :—S. cyani- 
penne, Serv. (the type), S. armigerum, Wh., S. terminatum, Per- 
roud, S. suturale (De}.), S. plicicolle, Germ., S. geniculatum, n.sp., 
S. pubescens, Ol., S. Hrichsonii, Wh., S. subpiceum, Wh., and 
S. Poéyi, Chev. SS. orientale, Wh., S. merme, Wh., S. triste, 
Guér., and S. insulare, Wh., may be regarded as degraded mem- 
bers of the genus. Two species (S. melanura and S. procerum), 
described by Erichson in Schomburgk’s ‘ Reisen in Britisch- 
Guiana,’ are unknown to me; so also is S. rusticum, lately 
published by Prof. Burmeister in the ‘ Stettiner Entom. Zeitung’ 
(1865, p. 167). Of the undescribed Spheerions I have selected 
those only for description for which new genera will be neces- 
sary, and have characterized two species hitherto only known by 
their catalogue-names. 
* Entom. p.93. The genus, however, can scarcely be said to be charac- 
terized by Mr. Newman. M. Thomson afterwards described ‘‘ Nephalius” 
in his ‘ Essai’ (p. 245), but in his later work, ‘ Systema Cerambycidarum,’ 
he revokes the name with the note ‘nec Newman,” and proposes ‘ Peri- 
beum’ for the generic name of the species previously published by him as 
Nephalius acuminatus. 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 8. Vol, xviii. 33 
