38 REMARKS ON THE LlNNiEAN GENERA 



" ne^lectis antennis H isterem a Scar a hceo 7iemo distinsuet^ ." 

 Degeer, whose entomological sagacity one can never suffi- 

 ciently admire, placed Tlister next to Lucanus, and re- 

 marks, that it appears to form a link between the Scarahezi 

 and Dermestes. Latreille makes it a member of his family 

 Sphceridiota, and remarks that "aucun insecte de la division 

 des Bt/rrhes n'a comme les escarbots ces deux characteres, 

 anteriiies brisees, mandibules avanctes^:" and indeed it is 

 true ; for such are the characters of his family of Lucani- 

 des, to which Hister naturally conducts us fi-om the Bi/rrhi. 

 This affinity did not escape the usual accuracy of Gyllenhall, 

 who places his new family Histeroides immediately after 

 the Lucanoides, and before Sphceridiota, with the just ob- 

 servation that " Familia lOma D' Latreille Necrophagi 

 nempe compreheiidit genera pliira nimis discrepantia, quare 

 aptius censui Histeres a reliquis separare"." 



Not having sufficiently studied the Saprophagous Rec- 

 tacera, I shall not attempt to say where or by what oscu- 

 lant genera they are connected with the thalerophagous 

 circle. It may be, that these interesting insects are not 

 yet discovered: but my point will be sufficiently established 

 if I can prove that the Histeridtc have a strong affinity to 

 the LucanidtE in general; and if I can show the existence 

 of insects belonging to one circle which M'ant some of its 

 distinctive characters, and thus approach to the other. For 

 this purpose, in the first place, I take the following ana- 

 logous characters from the description of a profound na- 

 turalist, who never seems to have suspected the affinity, and 



^ Ent. Carn. p. 13. 



" Hist. Nat. des Crust el des Ins, vol. ix. p. 191. 



" Gyllen. Ins. Suec. v6l. i. p. 74. 



