68 Mr. W. S. Mac LE A Y on the Structure of the Tarsus 



ino it oives superior streiif^th and solidity to that foundation 

 upon which it. is constructed : in fact, it seems always to give 

 rise to observations even more beautiful than those from which 

 it has resulted. Thus it was, that in attempting a natural ar- 

 rangement of the insects collected in Java by Dr. Horsfield, I 

 discovered that the more deeply I penetrated into the science of 

 affinities, the more broken up was the tarsal system. Still, Avith 

 that respect which we naturally indulge for notions generally 

 adopted, I have confined myself in the first number of the 

 Annulosa Javanica to my individual observations*, without ven- 

 turing to suppose that the French school of entomologists and 

 their followers could be essentially wrong in the very ground- 

 work of their favourite system. Although my confidence in the 

 observations of these naturalists was far from being so implicit 

 as it had been, the reader of the first sixty pages of the above- 

 mentioned work will perceive that, instead of attacking the divi- 

 sions of Dimcra, Trimera, &c. generally, I contented myself 

 with proving my affinities as it were in spite of them ; as, for 

 instance, where I admit the Erotyli, generally speaking, to be 

 tetramerous, while proving their immediate affinities to be pen- 

 tamerous. I had scarcely, however, corrected the press of the 

 first number of that work, when Captain P. P. King, R.N. one 

 of those enterprising and accomplished navigators who at the 

 present moment confer so much honour on our country, requested 

 me to examine the insects which he had collected during his late 

 expedition to survey the coasts of New Holland. Among the 

 ncAv forms of Coleoptera in this collection I found a pentamerous 

 insect, which I have since named Megamerus Kiiigii'^, and 



* See Ann. Jav. p. 40. 



+ For the characters of this genus and of Carpophagiis, see Narrative of a Suivei/ 

 of the Intertropical and IVestern Coasts of Australia, by Capt. P. P. King, R.N. 

 Appendix, p. 447, 448. tab. B. fig. 1 and 2. 



which 



