265 



Of the 84 already described Australian Onthophagi that seem 

 likely to be valid species, 53 are, I think, before me, leaving 31 

 which I have not to my knowledge seen. In the following pages 

 there will be fouad first a tabulation of these 53 species and of 

 the 26 new ones described below ; second, descriptions of the new 

 species and notes on a good many of the older ones ; third, a 

 tabulation of the characters of the species not known to me 

 drawn up after careful study of the descriptions of their authors 

 (this, of course, has to be founded on such characters — often very 

 unsatisfactory — as the authors have happened to mention) ; and 

 fourth, a few notes on each of the species not known to me, 

 quoting where it seems desirable the salient points in the de- 

 scriptions. This last part seems necessary in order to render the 

 memoir complete, although in several instances I have been able 

 only to furnish a brief abstract of notes that are not readily 

 accessible in Australia. 



To the difficulties I have already indicated as hindering a 

 satisfactory treatment of the Australian Onthophagi must be 

 added this, that there is no genus in which the difference between 

 the sexes is in most species more strongly marked or more 

 variable, while at the same time, so far as I know, there is no 

 invariable external character by which the sex of a specimen can 

 be determined positively. I believe that elongation of the front 

 tibiae is invariably a male character, but there are many species 

 in which the tibiae of the male are not elongated ; similarly, a 

 great development of frontal protuberances is usually a male 

 character, but in most (if not all) species these characters are 

 enfeebled in some males to the extent of being unrecognisable, 

 and in a few species the frontal protuberances are stronger in the 

 females than in the males. The front of the pronotum is, I 

 think, never more complex in the female than in the male, and in 

 general it is similar in character in both sexes of a species, but 

 more feeble in development in the female, but there are a few 

 species in which it is essentially different in the sexes. It is not 

 usual for the puncturation of the pronotum and elytra to differ 

 much sexually, but here again there are exceptions. Neverthe- 

 less, it has been the general practice of authors to form sub- 

 divisions of the genus on the sexual characters. De Harold, for 

 instance, Ann. Mus. G-en., 1877, p. 51, says that the primary 

 divisions are dependent on whether the male frontal protuber- 

 ances are median or lateral. There is no need to discuss here 

 the soundness of that opinion in the abstract, though I may say 

 in passing that as far as I am concerned I do not believe the 

 sexual characters to be the most fundamental, but the practical 

 inconvenience of such a classification is obvious — so obvious, 

 indeed, that there is no occasion to do more than just mention it. 



