Genera and Species of Coleoptera. 37 



lessly entombed in private as well as in public collections, or have 

 long been accumulating in my own. To record the most remarkable, 

 and such, at the same time, as can easily be recognized by figures 

 and descriptions, if confined to a private collection, is one of the 

 objects of this Journal, and the following is the first of a series of 

 papers which will be devoted to the Coleoptera. As it will be im- 

 possible to follow any systematic plan beyond the limits of each 

 paper, a classified list will be given hereafter to diminish this incon- 

 venience. 



It must not be forgotten that many of the insects to be described 

 will be either uniques, or, belonging to others, cannot therefore be 

 mutilated by dissection ; but as every new genus will be figured, it 

 is hoped that the absence of the usual analyses will not create any 

 difficulty. Practically, we are satisfied with referring species to 

 their genera from their external resemblances ; but although it is 

 very often quite impossible to ascertain the affinities of an insect 

 without dissection, there is the danger of attaching too great import- 

 ance to organs whose characters cannot always be determined satis- 

 factorily, and which, moreover, because they occur in one species, 

 are sometimes erroneously assumed to be present in others. Indeed, 

 it may be doubted if even individual species are so invariable as to 

 justify the minute desci-iptions of many naturalists. 



While believing in the existence of genera quite as much as in the 

 existence of species, is it satisfactorily established that they can 

 always be distinguished by technical characters, such as we are in 

 the habit of employing ? In all large genera, I believe, it will be 

 eventually found that they possess no one character in common that 

 is not also possessed by the group or family to which they respect- 

 ively belong, and hence it is quite natural that the limits of such 

 genera cannot be very strongly defined. This is especially the case 

 in the Longicorn families, which with endless differences in habit 

 agree in a certain similarity of details, so that the generic characters 

 often become mere questions of degree, — while, on the other hand, 

 many Heteromei'a alike in habit are found to vary remarkably in 

 structure, and in fact to belong to very different groups than those 

 in which their general appearance would seem to place them. 



These and other points of the same kind will be often exemplified 

 in the course of these ' Notices ; ' but in considering the difficulties 

 which beset all attempts at a satisfactory limitation and arrange- 

 ment of species into families, genera, &c, it will be as well to bear 

 in mind the remark of our great naturalist. — " Nature is less of a 

 svstematist than Man."' 



