2 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on the Genus Dicranocephalus. 



have been but too ready to consider the slightest variation of specific 

 importance*. 



These remarks are rendered necessary, because, in the following- 

 proposed additions to the genus Dicranocejahalus'f, I do not put 

 forward the three forms described as " undoubted species," — although 

 it would not be difficult to cite many instances where, in other cases, 

 this has been done on slighter grounds ; nor are they, in the present 

 state of our knowledge, to be considered as merely geographical sub- 

 species, and still less as instances of dimorphism. It is possible, and 

 indeed not unlikely, that intermediate forms may hereafter be received. 

 There is but a moderate gap to be bridged over; but, until that is done, 

 I am sure that it would be contrary to all ordinary notions of specific 

 distinction to unite them under the same name. 



The first of these forms, Dicranocephalus WaUichn, was brought 

 from Nepaul by General Hardwicke more than thirty years ago, and 

 was described 4: by the late Rev. F. W. Hope in Gray's ^Zoological 

 Miscellany,' afterwards figured § by Gory and Percheron in their 

 work on the ^' Cetonides," and later by Prof. Westwood in his 

 * Arcana.' I believe there were only two representatives of the 

 genus in Europe until Mr. Fortune went to China, when he sent 

 home altogether a large number of specimens, which were, and have 

 continued to be, referred to D. Wallichii. Mr. Bowring, however, 

 as I understand, protested from the first at considering it identical 

 with the old species. It is not merely as a compliment, therefore, 

 that I have named it after him. 



* A striking instance of tliis occurs in Pcdudoimis acidcatus, a river s]iell of 

 Ceylon, which, according to Mr. Blanford, in a communication to the Linnean 

 Society, has been split into no less than twenty-fom* species, all of which he demon- 

 strated, by a large series of specimens exliibited at the meeting, to be reducible to 

 one ! (Trans, vol. xxiii. p. 603.) 



t Often erroneously spelt Dicronocephalus. 



X Shortly described, but without a word of a generic kind. Dlcranocephalns 

 remained a mere catalogue name until the publication of the third volume of the 

 ' Genera des Coleopteres ; ' M. Lacordaire must therefore be cited as its autho- 

 rity. MM. Grory and Percheron, in their hybrid jargon, called it " Goliath 

 Wellech" Dicranocephalus itself is an abominably unwieldy name, and had 

 been previously used by Hahn for a genus of Hemiptera, but it does not appear 

 to have been adopted. 



§ The figure is very characteristic, and correctly drawn and coloured. That 

 in the 'Arcana,' from its position, is less satisfactory, and is coloured a pale 

 green. Mr. Hope's phrase is '' pallide flavo-viridis.'' I slioidd have thought 

 that the British Museum specimen, from which Professor Westwood took his 

 drawing, might originally have been green, but that the words of the French 

 authors, '' gris-jaundtre,^^ are as applicable at this moment as they probabty were 

 originally. 



