220 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
‘*¢ Fest steh’ dein Sarg in wohlgegénnter Ruh ; 
Mit lockrer Erde deckt ihn leise zu, 
Und sanfter, als des Lebens, liege dann 
Auf dir des Grabes Biirde, guter Mann !”’ 
JULIUS VON HAAST,. 
Christchurch, August 10, 1884. 
NOTES ON THE NOMENCLATURE OF NEW 
ZEALAND LUCANIDA* 
eet 
BY DR. SHAKE, 
I understand that in continuation of the valuable series of 
catalogues of Coleoptera published by this Society, one of the 
members has undertaken the Lucanide, and in order to facilitate 
his task, I give herewith the results of some researches into the 
nomenclature of the New Zealand species of the family about 
which a good deal of confusion prevails. The importance of 
correct nomenclature is well shown by the history of a slight 
error occuring in the list of New Zealand Coleoptera published 
by Professor Hutton some years ago. In this list, an Oxyomus, 
that should have been the first species of the family Scarabaeide, 
was, by a slight error, made to appear as the last of the Lucanide, 
and has since been treated by writers on New Zealand Entomo- 
logy as a real Lucanid, so that Wallace in his valuable work on 
the ‘“ Geographical Distribution of Animals” (Vol. L. p.j 453), 
has been misled into stating that in New Zealand “the Lucanide 
are represented bytwe peculiar genera, Dendroblax and Oxyomus.” 
It is scarcely necessary to add that Oxyomus is (or was, for it 
is, like nearly all generic names, a term of constantly shifting 
value) a very widely distributed genus outside of New Zealand, 
but does not really occur in New Zealand at all, and is more- 
over not a genus of Lucanide at all. 
In the Manual of New Zealand Coleoptera recently issued 
by the Colonial Museum and Geological Survey Department of 
New Zealand, twelve species of Lucanide@ are enumerated, and 
five of these are assigned to the genus “ Dorcus MacLeay,” three 
of these supposed species of Dorcus being described as new. I 
think it probable, however, that these species of Dorcus may 
belong to the genus Lissotes. 
Broun appears to have been unacquainted with the work done 
in the last twenty years on the genera of Lucanide, and does not 
appear himself to have made any examination of the generic 
characters of the New Zealand Lucanide@ ; while the description 
he gives of the genus Dorcus is “ epitomised from the descrip- 
tions of Lucanus and Dorcus” given by Lacordaire in the 
“Genera of Coleoptera,” and thus he did not recognise that the 
two species he assigns: to Dorcus should be,—indeed have long 
i Extracted from ‘ Comptes- -rendus de la Société Entomologique de Belgique.” 
2nd February, 1884. 
