80 ME. F. P. PASCOE ON THE LONGICORNIA OP AUSTRALIA. 



On the Longicornia of Australia, with a List of all the Described 

 Species, &c. By Feancis P. Pascoe, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c., 

 late Pres. Ent. Soc. 



[Eead June 21, 1866.] 



A LIST of Australian Longicornia which I published about seven 

 years ago, contained the names of 259 species. Through the 

 kindness of many friends this number has now been brought up 

 to nearly 500 ; but if we take into consideration the economy of 

 these insects, their usually short lives in the perfect state, and 

 their attachment to certain trees in which their larvse have fed, 

 confining their distribution in many cases to very narrow limits, 

 we can scarcely avoid drawing the conclusion that we are still 

 very far from haviug a complete list. However, it is I think 

 desirable, in the dispersed condition of zoological literature, that 

 ,we should now and then examine the materials that have been 

 accumulated, and indicate where they are to be found ; and this I 

 have attempted to do in the following pages. 



The boundaries of these austral lands, viewed as a zoological 

 region solely in relation to the Coleoptera, seem to be strictly 

 limited to Australia and Tasmania, — New Guinea, to the north, 

 belonging to the Malay region, and very decidedly separated by 

 Torres Straits ; while New Caledonia and New Zealand, to the 

 east, can be regarded as satellite regions only — that is, as contain- 

 ing a mixture of no very decidedly characteristic geographical 

 genera with a few others strictly endemic and often of very re- 

 markable structure. 



- If we take the Coleoptera as an order, then the Longicornia 

 may be regarded as a suborder composed of the three families 

 of Lamiidce, CeramhycidcB, and PrioiiidcB. Each of these is divided 

 into numerous subfamilies, from which we pass to the genera and 

 species. 



The Longicornia offer many difficulties in their classification. 

 Many of the technical characters used for defining the genera do 

 not amount to more than modifications, sometimes with almost 

 insensible gradations between them ; but genera, like species, are 

 often differentiated by very slight characters only, and what is 

 true of one is as true of the other. It is not, however, to be in- 

 ferred that the genera themselves are in such cases so insensibly 

 connected ; it is the characters by which we attempt to indicate 

 them. Occasionally, too, we find the generic characters merging 

 into the specific ; and yet the genus, in the sense of a group of 



