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XXXV, A few Ohservations upon Lucanus Lama, Oliv,,and 

 its Synonymy. By Major F. J. Sidney Parry, F.L.S. 



' [Read 5th January, 1863.] 



Among the numerous errors committed by Dr. Burmeister in his 

 descriptions of Lucanoid Coleoptera (vid. Handbuch der Entomo- 

 logie, vol. 5), with reference to synonym}' of species, none is to 

 be found more conspicuous than that in his notice o? Lucanus 

 Lama, Oliv. (pp. 353, 527), no less than five distinct insects 

 having been united by him to the species in question. 



Mr. Victor Motschulsky, in describing some new Coleoptera from 

 Japan (vid. Etudes Entomologiques, 1860, 1861), mentions a new 

 species of true Lucanus under the name of L. maculifemoratus, 

 suggesting its affinity to L. lunifer and L. Cantori, Hope (Lama, 

 Burm.), Mr. S. Van VoUenhoven, of the Leyden Mus., in his 

 interesting paper upon some new Lucanidce, published in the 

 Tijdschrift v, Entomologie, 1860, 1861, gives the description of a 

 species from Java, L. sericans, Dehaan MSS., suggesting its affi- 

 nity to L. lunifer, Hope (Lama, Burm.), or to another species in 

 the Leyden Mus. from Japan, which he thinks is L. villosus, 

 Hope (Lama, Burm.) So much confusion is thus constantly 

 arising in consequence of Dr. Burmeister's mistake, that I feel it 

 would be most desirable to rectify the error by appending to my 

 remarks a tabular statement of the several species alluded to, 

 now so abundant in our collections as to warrant its exactitude. 

 L. villosus, Hope (which species Mr. Thomson, in his recently 

 published Catalogue, has also confounded with L. lunifer, Hope ; 

 vid. ante, p. 446), is, however, an exception, being still very rare. 

 The typical specimen (Nepaul) from General Hardwicke's collec- 

 tion, ^, is in the Brit. Mus. : my own collection possesses also one, 

 but in none other, either English or foreign, have I met with it. 



It is difficult to affix, with any positive certainty, the exact 

 species L. Lama, Oliv., is to be referred to. The absence of 

 spines from the four posterior tibiae, as well as the form of head, 

 vid. pi. 3, fig. 8 (and more especially when compared with Olivier's 

 fig. of L. Cervus ? , pi. 1, fig. 1 f), is quite sufficient, I think, to 

 substantiate that Lama is not the ? of a true Lucanus, — but, on 

 the contrary, to warrant the belief that it belongs to the sub- 

 genus Odontolabis, Hope ; and although some Entomologists have 



