Mr. A. Murray on Coleoptera from Old Calabar. 317 
Only a female specimen received. The above description 
therefore applies only to the female; but, as it is almost iden- 
tical with M. brasiliense, I have taken the characters of the 
male specified in the characters of the genus from one of that 
species. 
This is another example of a Brazilian form occurring at Old 
Calabar. 
I may take this occasion to say that I think the family to 
which this species belongs (the Lymexylonidz) is not here in 
its right place. Although actually pentamerous, it appears to 
me that the species composing it are Heteromera in disguise, 
and that their place is next the genera I have above mentioned. 
On the same principle that botanists disregard the rules of the 
Linnean system when they run counter to natural affinity, 
entomologists ought, I think, more frequently than they do, 
to disregard the tarsal characters when inconsistent with other 
indications of affinity. Westwood (with his admirable flair 
entomologique, that imstinct for affinity which so rarely errs) 
acknowledged this relationship between the Lymexylonide and 
Melandryade in his ‘ Modern Classification of Insects ;’ and 
Lacordaire, in alluding to his remarks, also admits the analogy. 
Both, too, in placing the family in or near its present position, 
admit that it is not placed satisfactorily. It comes awkwardly 
in between Ptinus and Clerus (where Lacordaire has placed it), 
and not much better between Ptinus and Bostrichus (where 
Westwood has put it). But if it is to come among the Penta- 
mera, there is no better place for it. They have bent to that 
artificial test; but in doing so they have removed it from a 
group of insects like it in facies and habit, of similar structure, 
and endowed with some of the exceptional peculiarities which 
are to be found in this family. That group is a cluster of 
Heteromerous genera belonging to the Melandryade. All 
of them have the underside of the body and legs and tarsi 
(except. in the number of articles) constructed on the same 
principle, and that a principle deviating considerably from that 
of the Pentamera. Some of them, too, as Serropalpus, have a 
similarity in outward appearance tothe Lymexylonide. In spe- 
cies of that genus and others of the Heteromera not far distant 
from it, “‘ Nature has played strange antics” with the maxillary 
palpi, turning them into curiously serrated organs in Serro- 
palpus, mto strange long flexible trunks like the antenne of 
Blatta in Nemognatha, and into distorted indescribable masses 
in Cerocoma; and in the Lymexylonide an analogous distortion 
of these organs into flabellated plates occurs. I do not remem- 
ber any similar abnormal vagary appearing in the palpi of any 
dther group of Coleoptera, except in the Palpicornes and in some 
