Genera of the Cossonida. 529 



under Onycholips and the following groups) that the true 

 position of Georrhijnchus must be, of necessity, amongst 

 the Cossonids. 



32. ONYCIIOLIPS (Wollaston, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. v. 

 389. 1861). It was not without some degree of hesitation 

 in the first instance, that I decided on recognising the 

 anomalous genus Onycholips as the type of a subfamily 

 of the Cossonidce; more especially since Lacordaire has 

 expressed a doubt as to its true location, and hints that 

 it may perhaps be necessary to establish a distinct family 

 of the Rhynchophora to receive it, along perhaps with 

 Georrhynchus (the almost equally unintelligible Curcu- 

 lionid just alluded to, with apparently somewhat similar 

 subfossorial habits, detected at Montevideo). Yet, de- 

 spite its many eccentricities, some of which would seem to 

 debar it from nearly every department of the weevils which 

 has hitherto been defined (and which must remain, con- 

 sequently, anomalies wherever the genus be placed), the 

 more I study its various details (structural and external), 

 and its fossorial mode of life, the more convinced am I, as 

 at first, of its not very distant relationship with such blind 

 members of the Cossonidce as Pentatemnus, Halorhynchus, 

 and Lipommata (particularly the former), and even more 

 so perhaps with the equally blind Raymondionymus and 

 Alaocyba, all of which have either burrowing or sand- 

 infesting habits, and slightly pilose bodies, and which show 

 some kind of tendency for unusual tibial developments; the 

 last two, moreover, having a 6-jointed funiculus, and 

 quadriarticulate feet. Perhaps the most significant points 

 however, which have been urged as tending to remove it 

 from the Cossonidce are embodied in the twofold fact that 

 its first and second abdominal segments are not completely 

 soldered, and that its intermediate coxas are almost (like 

 the anterior ones) contiguous ; but, on the other hand, 

 there are many undoubted Cossonids in which the first 

 and second segments of the abdomen are not absolutely 

 confluent, being (as in Hexarthrum, Brachytemnus and 

 Sphcerocorynes) separated from each other by a most con- 

 spicuous sutural line ; whilst certain, also, of the sub- 

 Hylastideous genera of the true Cossonides have (like 

 Hexarthrum, Stereocorynes, Tomolips, Brachytemnus, 

 Stenoscelis, and others) their intermediate legs (no less 

 than their anterior ones, almost completely in contact, and 

 I think therefore that neither of those characters will- 



