in the Tetramerous and Trimerons Colcoptera. 69 



which at first puzzled me not a little as to its natural affinities. 

 On dissecting it, however, and comparing it with the genus Sa- 

 gro on one side, and on the other with a New Holland insect 

 allied to Bruchus, which, from the circumstance of its being 

 found on plants of the genus Banksia, I have called Carpophagus 

 Banks/a, I ascertained in some degree its natural place. But the 

 Megamerus was pentamerous ; while Sagra, leading off to the 

 Linnean genera Cerambyx and Chrijsomela, and while Bruchns, 

 leading off to Cnrculio, were both recorded as tetramerous. It 

 was, however, observable that the tarsus of my pentamerous 

 insect differed in no other respect from that of Sagra and 

 Bruchus; that is, from the tarsus of the majority of M. Latreille's 

 section of Tetramera. The three first joints of its tarsus were in 

 short dilated into species of cushions, of which the last was bi- 

 lobed, while the fourth joint was short, slender, obconical, and 

 forming at first sight one piece with the fifth ; so that the three 

 first articulations formed a dilated part of the tarsus, and the two 

 last a filiform part. Had it not been for the presence of the 

 fourth joint and its remarkable size in the Mcga^nerus Kingii, I 

 might indeed have described its tarsus in the very words which 

 in the Règne Animal are applied to this part of the foot in the 

 Linnean groups Curculio, Cerambyx, and Chrysomela : " Le des- 

 sous des trois premiers articles des tarses est spongieux ou garni 

 des brosses avec le pénultième divisé profondement en deux 

 lobes." But on examining carefully Sagra and Carpophagus, 

 these genera will be found pentamerous in the same manner as 

 Megamerus. May it not then be possible, we naturally ask, that 

 the majority of insects hitherto called tetramerous, are in reality 

 pentamerous insects? An accurate examination of any Lin- 

 nean Cerambyx, Curculio, or Chrysomela will prove it to be so, 

 and that, in fact, the accurate description of the tarsus in these 



three 



