51^ SUPPLEMENT 



The second genus is the same as the housier, or copris of 

 GeofFroy. SchEeffer has imitated the example of Geoffroy, 

 in adopting two genera, Scarabceus and Copris. 



Fabricius separated from Scarabaeus, melolontha, cetonia 

 and trox. But the genus Scarabseusj as founded by this 

 celebrated naturalist, presented some very remarkable dif- 

 ferences, which determined INIM. Latreille and Olivier to 

 form of it twelve genera, or large families, the first of which 

 comprehended the scarabaei which possess mandibles, and no 

 upper lip ; the second contained the scarabaei which have 

 mandibles and an upper lip ; and in the third , those which 

 have neither mandibles nor upper lip. In his Systematic 

 Entomology he confines himself to detaching from his genus 

 scarabasus, the species named cylindricus, to make of it that 

 of Synodendron, but to which he refers erroneously some 

 species of Bostrichus, an error which he subsequently left 

 uncorrected. M. Latreille, in his summary of the generic 

 characters of insects, established, with the scarabaei of the 

 second division, a peculiar genus which he named Geotrupes, 

 adopted that of Copris, and preserved the generic name of 

 Scarahceus only for the species of the first division. These 

 genera, and those which had been separated from the scara- 

 baei of Linnaeus before, composed his second family of cole- 

 optera. Fabricius, in the Supplement to his Systematic 

 Entomology, also admits the genus Copris, but he restrains 

 it, establishing at its expense the genus Onitis. The geo- 

 trupes of M. Latreille, as we have already seen, were Scara- 

 bcBi) in the system of the German naturalist, and the scarabaei 

 of the former were geotrupes with the latter. Notwith- 

 standing the inconvenience of this substitution of names, it 

 was nevertheless received by the naturalists of Germany, so 

 imposing is the authority of a great name. The same genus, 

 housier or copris, underwent some time after a new modifica- 

 tion. M. Weber separated from it the Ateuchus, and Illiger 



