tiinodendron.} J.AMKLUCORNIA. 7 



Wales, and rather common from the midland counties south wards ; it is, however, rarer 

 farther north ; Scotland, rare, Tuy, Dee, and Moray districts ; it is probably not 

 uncommon in Ireland. 



(Platycerus, Geoffrey ; Systenocei-us, Weise. As this genus of the 

 Lucanidee, represented by the single species P. caraboides, has been 

 included in all our old catalogues, it can hardly be passed over without 

 notice ; the genus is allied to Lucanus and Dorcus, but differs in having 

 the eyes entire, and in the shape of the club of the antenna, the first 

 joint of which is very small, the second and third narrow and laterally 

 elongate, and the last very large, subovate ; from Sinodendron it differs 

 in its depressed form, and in the fact that the posterior femora project 

 beyond the sides of elytra. 



P. caraboides, L. Blue or greenish, rather shining ; head and man- 

 dibles larger in male than in female, the former rather closely punctured 

 and pubescent ; thorax transverse, with margins strongly raised, rounded 

 at sides which are sinuate behind, thickly and distinctly punctured ; 

 elytra with rows of punctures which are rather thick and comparatively 

 fine ; interstices somewhat rugose ; under-side pitchy black, rather 

 strongly pubescent ; legs black or pitchy black. L. 8-12 mm. 



Stephens records the species as very rare in Britain, and says that 

 "specimens have been taken by Mr. Waring of Bristol" and others in 

 Scotland, and that it has also occurred near Oxford, and in the west of 

 England ; I have a specimen in my collection which I purchased from the 

 collection of the late Mr. E. Brown of Burton- on-Trent, and which was 

 labelled "e coll. Children ;" Erichson records the species as widely dis- 

 tributed throughout Germany, and Thomson speaks of it as " not rare on 

 young leaves of oak, birch, and aspen, and as spread over all Scandi- 

 navia ; " it appears that it may very probably be really indigenous in our 

 country, although very rare.) 



SCAEABJEIDJE. 



This family, which is co-extensive with the Petalocera of Dumeril, is 

 one of the largest and most important families of the Coleoptera ; in the 

 Munich catalogue about six hundred genera, containing about six 

 thousand and fifty species, are enumerated, and since its publication a 

 large number of genera and species have been added to it, as may be 

 judged from the fact that in the Supplement of the Cetonides by M. 

 Berge", published in 1884, no less than eight hundred and fifty species, 

 and about one hundred and fifty new genera are enumerated as having 

 been described since the publication of the Munich catalogue in 1869. 



The largest known nn miters of the Coleoptera belong to this family, 

 and some of them, as has been already mentioned, are (Usfctngniahed l>y 

 the very great development of the horns on the head and thorax ; a great 

 number of them are dung-feeders, and as such act as most useful 

 scavengers ; among these may especially be mentioned the members of 



