Characters of the genus Cleonynius. 17 



Irophi, which therefore here naturally possess but a secondary importance, 

 but little variation will be found in the formation of them, and hence 

 that ^xerZ generic characters cannot be drawn from them; since I feel 

 satisfied that, having regard to such slight variation tliroughout the re- 

 spective groups or subfamihes, the species in any one of the genera vary 

 nearly as much inter se, in the structure of these parts, as the genera 

 themselves. * Indeed I certainly feel inclined to adopt on this point the 

 opinion of Mr. Curtis cjeneralhj, since I do not see any sufficient grounds for 

 restricting it to the Coleoptera ; and although it is somewhat at variance 

 with his more recently expressed opinions. That author, after point- 

 ing out the similarity in the trophi of Mycetophagus and Tetratoma, 

 two genera theretofore placed v^^dely apait and in different families, has 

 observed, " My opinion is daily strengthened that the organs of mandu- 

 cation, in the Coleoptera at least, will form the most natural divisions 

 for families, and that the antennae alone will frequently supply the best 

 generic characters." f 



But if the families are thus to be considered either as characterizable 

 or divisible into subfamilies, (for from the expression of Mr. Curtis 

 it is not sufficiently clear which of these is intended,) from the forma- 

 tion of the trophi, the characters of the genera must be sought for not 

 only in the formation of the antennee, but also of other organs, which 

 must necessarily be external ones. Hence this observation of Mr. 

 Curtis may with advantage be still more generally extended, since 

 I hold it for certain that wherever we find any set of organs, which 



* Hence the folly in extensive genera belonging to such groups, of selecting^ 

 one species as the type of a genus, of drawing the characters of such genus from 

 a second species, and of figuring a third as an example of it. 



f British Entomology, No. 156. After the expression of such an opinion^ 

 I should certainly have hesitated considerably, (even were it merely for the sake 

 of consistency,) before I had united (as Mr, Curtis has done in the very genus, 

 in his observations upon which the above opinion was expressed) insects differ- 

 ing so extremely as the Mycetophagi and Triphylli, the clava of whose antennae 

 is, as Mr. Curtis admits, respectively formed of three and five joints; more 

 especially sines the clavation of the antennae is, (as I hope shortly satisfac- 

 torily to establish,) a character intimately connected with the economy of these 

 insects. 



Vol. IV. B 



