67 



pose to deal with them in this Revision of the Australian 

 Melolonthides, because an eminent European student (Dr. 

 ¥. Ohaus, of Hamburg) has made them the special object of 

 his investigation. He has published already (Stett. ent. 

 Zeit., 1904, pp. 57, etc.) a most interesting "Revision der 

 Anoplognathiden ,> (a subtribe of Rutelides to which nearly all 

 the known Australian species of the Tribe appertain), and is 

 at present — as he informs me — proceeding with his work on 

 the remaining subtribes. I therefore gladly refer Aus- 

 tralian students of this aggregate to his valuable treatises, 

 and for the present, at any rate, abstain from dealing with 

 the matter more particularly. 



DYNASTIDES. 



The classification of the Australian genera of this Tribe 

 (which is the third of the Tribes into which Lacordaire 

 divides his second "Legion" of Lamellicornes — vide Trans. 

 Roy. Soc, S.A., 1905, pp. 275, etc.) cannot be satisfactorily 

 ordered in accordance with that set forth by Lacordaire. 

 That author reduces below the level of even generic rank a 

 character which, as far as the Australian Dynastides are 

 concerned, appears to me to be the primary one by which the 

 Tribe should be divided into two main aggregates, viz., the 

 structure of the apex of the posterior tibiae which is either 

 (a) ciliate or (b) non-ciliate. In this Tribe it is particularly 

 difficult to find available generic characters which are neither 

 sexual nor such as involve the dissection of the mouth organs 

 — both of them, no doubt, of great importance (especially 

 the former), but both of them highly inconvenient for prac- 

 tical purposes ; the structure of the posterior tibiae, how- 

 ever, is easily observed, and divides the Australian genera 

 into two aggregates, all in one of which resemble each other 

 in facies much more than they resemble any genus in the 

 other aggregate. M. Lacordaire's classification must be dis- 

 cussed here, in order to show the objection to its use for 

 Australian genera. He separates from all the rest of the Tribe 

 two small subtribes characterized one by the structure of the 

 mandibles, the other by the position of the base of the labial 

 palpi. The former of those is not known to be Australian, 

 and therefore need not be discussed here. To the latter 

 he attributes Cryptodon and (conjecturally) Semanopterus of 

 Hope (which he calls, probably by a clerical error, Sema- 

 notus, making no remark on the change of name). I have 

 dissected a number of species of Semanopterus, and find that 

 the labial palpi are inserted as Lacordaire conjectures them 

 to be, under the edge of the mentum, so that the basal joint 

 is more or less concealed ; but inasmuch as the subtribe 



