GLOBE BEETLES. 95 



a different species. Its colour is black, but the elytra 

 are generally tinted towards the apex with reddish- 

 chestnut, the size and exact tint of this mark varying 

 exceedingly ; and in some specimens the elytra are 

 altogether black. Like the rest of the genus, it can 

 be found in cowdung. 



Formerly some sixty species of Cercyon were 

 catalogued, but they have now been reduced to seven- 

 teen genuine species ; two-thirds of the imagined 

 species proving, on careful investigation, to be nothing 

 but varieties. In one case, that of Cercyon nigriceps, 

 the same insect had been described under seven 

 different names by the same naturalist. 



