540 Entomological Papers. [No. 6. 



of opinion should exist, still Westwood in bis Modern Classification 

 of Insects in describing the same family makes statements which im- 

 ply the contrary. However, Lacordaire's description, being by 15 years 

 more recent and in fact the latest, is from this reason alone entitled to 

 be considered before all others, and looking upon it in this light, that is 

 as the essence of all former observations, I shall for the present occupy 

 myself with it alone. According to this description, as mentioned 

 above, the insects which it regards have the elytra soldered together 

 and are destitute of wings. This being the case, I was startled to 

 find that out of the 13 species described below, 9 or 10 which I 

 examined in this respect, had neither the elytra soldered nor were 

 they destitute of wings — on the contrary the elytra were unconnected 

 in the middle and the wings were nearly double the size of the whole 

 insect and could not possibly be overlooked. I would willingly sup- • 

 pose that the 100 species of this family contained in European 

 collections, and principally derived from Europe and N. America, 

 agreed with Lacordaire's description and that the Ceylon species 

 were exceptions to the general rule, had not Westwood's observation 

 alluded to above corroborated my own, thus rendering me suspicious 

 of some unaccountable mistake or oversight somewhere or other. 

 That this mistake can not consist in a slip of the pen or a misprint 

 in the g. des Coleopteres quoted above, is clear from the obvious 

 care which has in every respect been bestowed upon this work, and 

 from the same remarks being repeated in different words. Where 

 this mistake is, and upon what grounds it rests — it would, under 

 my circumstances, be useless to attempt to unravel. However, it 

 appears certain to me that some more detailed and positive remarks 

 on the subject can not be superfluous, and must be new to some 

 Entomologists. Placing the fullest confidence, as every one would 

 do without hesitation, in the infallibility of the description of the 

 Belgian author, it was not likely that I should have looked for wings 

 at all in the Scydmsenidse (a family to which I have not until lately 

 paid much attention) had I not been struck by seeing the elytra 

 of my S. alatus open when handling it with a fine painter's brush 

 in a drop of water, it being at the time quite out of the question 

 that the opening could have been effected by pressure. On opening 

 the elytra fully I had no difficulty in discovering the wings. Ken- 



