MR. r. p. PASCOE ON THE LONGICORlSriA OF AUSTRALIA. 81 



nearly connected species, is not thereby by any means invalidated. 

 To meet the objections to such groujDs, it is sometimes proposed 

 to call them " subgenera ;" but the idea of overcoming such a 

 difficulty by the alteration of a nam_e seems to me to be a mere 

 delusion. Well-defined genera require aberrant species to be 

 eliminated ; if the genera are to be enlarged to meet such cases, 

 then the genera, as such, cease to have any definable limits, and 

 can convey no certain idea to the mind. Having acted on tlie 

 principle of the first proposition, it has appeared to me desirable 

 to make these remarks in order to meet the objection of those 

 who consider, not that the number of genera should be regulated 

 by their practical utility, but that it should be limited so as to 

 avoid the inconvenience of taxing the memory. It is, I think, a 

 great point gained when the knowledge of one member of a genus 

 enables us, with the aid of a short diagnosis, to form a good idea 

 of another ; and this can only be done by a careful avoidance of 

 mixing incongruous species together into one genus. For this, 

 many new genera will have to be propounded ; and this practice 

 appears unquestionably to be becoming more and more the ten- 

 dency of modern systematists. It may, however, be carried too 

 far, as when nearly allied species are separated solely on technical 

 grounds — such separatists failing to see that what may be good 

 generic characters in one case are only of specific importance in 

 another. 



In order to make this list as complete as possible, I have pre- 

 fixed descriptions of the following new species. Some of them 

 and a few other interesting forms, not hitherto figured, are repre- 

 sented in the two plates appended to this Catalogue. 



Heresecis spabsa. 



H. nigra ; antennis annulatis ; scapo modice elongate ; prothorace supra 

 glabro, utrinque niveo pubescetite ; elyti-is ovatis, bicarinatis^ maculis 

 niveis pubescentibus dispersis. 



Hub. Western Australia. 



Black ; head broad in front, with little tufts of white hairs : antennae 

 rather larger than the body ; the scape subelongate, obconic ; the third 

 and fourth joints, at the base, and the sixth and eighth, white : pro- 

 thorax glabrous above, closely punctured, the sides covered with a 

 dense snowy-white pubescence ; scutellum small, rounded posteriorly : 

 elytra ovate, rather coarsely punctured, covered with small white tufts 

 of pubescence, each elytron with two rather strongly marked carinse : 

 body beneath with a tufted whitish pubescence ; legs slightly pubes- 

 cent. Length 4-7 lines. 



LIKN. PBOC. — ZOOLOGY, TOL. IX. 8 



