PREFACE. vii 



drawing up a monograph* of the several species 

 composing the genus Ateuchus, to which this insect 

 had been referred by Weber and Fabricius. But he 

 soon found that the unsettled and hitherto ill-de- 

 fined state of the science had not only rendered this 

 celebrated species, by means of repeated changes in 

 nomenclature, unknown to any but entomologists; 

 but that several other very distinct species were con- 

 founded together with it, under the trivial name of 

 sacer. To this difficulty was added the unaccount- 

 able circumstance, that none of the great systematic 

 authors, except Fabricius and Latreille, had pro- 

 perly distinguished it from other Coleopterous in- 

 sects with lamellate antennse, although the habits 

 of these are often totally different. It thus was evi- 

 dent, that to review the whole of the Lamellicorn 

 insects, properly so called, became necessary for 

 any one who might wish to have correct ideas of the 

 true place held in nature by the most interesting of 

 the tribe. And as his father possessed a cabinet con- 

 taining nearly 1 800 species of the Linnaean genus 

 ScarabcEus, the author was led to imagine that few 

 could be placed in a situation more favourable for 

 the investigation, than himself; and, therefore, that it 



* This intention has since been abandoned, in consequence of a 

 work " sur les Insectes Sacres d'Egypte " being now in the hands 

 of the person in Europe the best able to treat the subject — M. La- 

 treille de I'Academie Royale des Scienee& 



