C 625 ) 



XLIX. Descriptions of some neio Species of Exotic Longi- 

 corn Beetles. By J. O. Westwood, Esq., M.A., 

 F.L.S., Hopeian Professor of Zoology in the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford. 



[Read 7th Sept., 1863.] 



I SCARCELY think any apology will be needed in offering to this 

 Society the descriptions and figures of a iew isolated species of 

 Longicorn beetles, when their extreme beauty is taken into con- 

 sideration. The objection to the publication of such isolated de- 

 scriptions arises from the difficulty of referring each species to 

 its legitimate position, and of keeping it fixed in the mind of the 

 student of the family, which is scarcely likely to be the case when 

 a few words or even a few lines of description, often unaccompanied 

 by any comparative observations or critical remarks, are only given. 

 When, however, careful figures are added, the facilities for re- 

 ference and the difficulty of obliterating from the mind the know- 

 ledge thereby imparted, especially when the species are remark- 

 able, are so greatly increased as to render the publication of such 

 descriptions and figures beneficial rather than detrimental to the 

 progress of science. 



Genus Zygocera, Dej. Cat. 3rd ed., p. 344, sine descr. (nee 

 Thomson, Classif. des Longicornes, p. Ill, cum descr.) 



This genus was first proposed, without any characters being 

 assigned to it, by the Baron Dejean in the third edition of his 

 Catalogue, upon a single species. Mr. Thomson has adopted the 

 generic name in his Archives Entomologiques, i. p. 189, but has 

 described two other species from Australia and Java, one of 

 which, in his work on the Longicornes (p. Ill), he regards as 

 the type of the genus, which he consequently claims as his own. 

 It happens, however, that the descrijitions of these two insects do 

 not agree with the type originally proposed, wanting the peculiar 

 sexual character afforded by the antennae of that species, whence 

 the generic name was proposed, namely, the tuft of black hairs at 

 the extremity of the very long third joint of the antennae in the 

 males, which tuft is not present in the female. In fact Mr. 

 Thomson's two species belong to the previously described genus 



