On the Coleopterous Genera Horia and Cissites. 199 



XIX. — Notes on the Coleopterous Genera Horia, Fab., and 

 Cissites, Latr., and a List of the described Species. By 

 C. J. Gahan, M.A. 



The two genera of Meloidse that form the subject of these 

 notes comprise altogether less than twenty known species, 

 and the genera themselves are very easily to be distinguished 

 from one another ; yet the number of errors that have in one 

 way or another come to be associated with them is truly 

 astonishing. The chief of these errors have already been 

 discovered and corrected by others, but, unfortunately, atten- 

 tion was called to them in such a way that they have been 

 noticed either very inadequately or not at all in the ' Zoological 

 Record ' — an omission for which the Recorders are in no wise 

 to blame. They have been brought to my own knowledge 

 in an endeavour to determine the correct name to be given to 

 a species in a collection from Ruwenzori Mountain on which 

 I am now working, and will incidentally, perhaps, illustrate 

 the difficulties with which a systematist has to contend if he 

 wish to be accurate. 



The species to which I have just referred obviously 

 belonged to the genus generally recognized as Cissites, 

 Latr. ; but on reference to Kolbe/ s very valuable paper of 

 1897 on the Coleoptera of East Africa, I there found (1) that 

 Cissites, Latr., was placed as a synonym of Horia, Fab., on 

 the ground that the same species, viz. Horia testacea, Fab., 

 was the type of both genera, and (2) that a new generic name 

 (Synhoria) was proposed by Kolbe for the species (cepha- 

 lotes, maxillosa, maculata, &c.) that had hitherto been regarded 

 as constituting the genus Horia, Fab. This led me to further 

 inquiry. I found Kolbe quite right in stating that Horia 

 testacea was the type of the genus Horia, Fab. ; but this also 

 I found, that, contrary to the statement of Kolbe, which was 

 probably borrowed from Lacordaire, and contrary also to a 

 similar statement made and repeated by Latreille himself, 

 Horia testacea, Fab., is not the type of Cissites, Latr. The 

 type of this genus I found to be Cissites maculata (Swed.), 

 the Horia maculata of Olivier and Fabricius, one of the 

 species included by Kolbe in his genus Synhoria. It does 

 not necessarily follow, however, that Synhoria should be 

 treated as a synonym of Cissites. Kolbe specified no type 

 for his genus ; and if cephalotes, Oliv., the first species 

 mentioned by him, be taken as the type, it will be shown 

 that Synhoria, if not a distinct genus, is at least a very 



