Genera of the Cossonides. 429 



various generic characters might have been more easily, 

 and completely) tabulated ; but since in that case a con- 

 siderable number of groups which I am satisfied have no 

 real affinity with each other would have been brought into 

 juxta-position, I have preferred to sacrifice even convenience 

 in identification to the more important principle of a cor- 

 rect adjustment of the several types.* On this account 

 it is, that while acknowledging the exact number of the 

 funiculus-joints as of primary signification, I have not 

 allowed it to over-ride (in a few exceptional instances) a 

 combination of other features which more than counter- 

 balance it in structural importance ; and hence amongst 

 the true Cossonides, in which that organ is essentially 

 7 -articulate. I have admitted one genus ( Tetracoptus) in 

 which the funiculus is composed of four joints, two 

 (Pentamimus and Tomolips) in which it is made-up of 

 five, and one (Hex or thrum) in which it consists of six, 

 for it would be simply preposterous to include the first of 

 these amongst the Dryophthorides (with which in other 

 respects it has absolutely nothing in common), and the 

 second and third amongst the Pentarthrides , or to asso- 

 ciate the fourth (which belongs to the sub-Hylastideous, 

 asperated types) with the anomalous and more or less 

 fossorial Onycholipides in which the body is pallid and 

 somewhat hairy, the tibial hook obsolete, and the tarsi 

 strictly tetramerous. Moreover Lacordaire has himself 

 acknowledged this principle by placing Hexarthrum in 

 the same situation as I have done, namely towards the 

 close of the subfamily Cossonides ; and it is a method 

 indeed which is acted upon, more or less, in nearly every 

 department of the Coleoptera. 



With respect to the singular cluster of forms which I have 

 brought together under the Onycholipides, they might 

 well be supposed, if viewed per se, to pertain to some totally 

 distinct (and perhaps as yet undefined) family of the 

 Rliynchophora ; but they are nevertheless so unmistake- 

 ably connected on the one hand, by means of Halorhyn- 

 chus and Pentatemnus, with the Pentarthrides, and on the 



* Finding it next to impossible in the subfamily Cossonides to tabulate 

 the characters of more than a small number of the very numerous genera 

 (whilst, at the same time, adhering to what I believe to be the natural 

 sequence of the latter), I have, instead, and as a slight assistance towards 

 the identification, noted a few diagnostic features of each successive group; 

 and, as a still further aid to the eye, I have cited the particular country to 

 which the several genera are peculiar, or in which they more especially 

 predominate. 



I I 2 



