LUCANUS AND HISTER. So 



tion of the Cetoniidce to the Lucanida, on account of the 

 bifid clypeus of the Goliathi bearing a resemblance to the 

 gigantic mandibles of Lucanus, one can only express 

 astonishment that Latreille should be able to reconcile 

 himself, by such very fanciful reasoning, to an arrangement 

 so evidently unnatural. Both Cetonia and Lucanus are 

 without doubt insects which live on vegetable juices; but 

 then the maxilla of the former is a thin membranaceous 

 plate proper for the expression of the nectar of flowers, 

 whereas the maxilla of Lucanus is a long delicate brush of 

 quite a different form, though extremely well contrived for 

 its object — to lick up the sap flowing from the wounds of 

 trees 3 -. 



Let us now examine the genus Letkrus, which ap- 

 pears to have opposed as many difficulties to entomolo- 

 gists as Sinodendron : — it will be interesting to see this 

 hitherto anomalous insect occupying the important place 

 of a link between the Pelalocera and Recticera. Scopoli 

 first instituted the genus b ; and Fabricius added a new 

 species c , from its possessing the convex form of body, in- 

 fundibuliform clava to the antenna?, porrect mandibles, and 

 setose maxillas, which so strongly characterized the type. As 

 however this new insect was supposed to want the labrum, 

 and its maxilla? also were penicilliform, Schreibers asserted 

 it to be a Lucanus d . Fabricius had previously hinted 

 that it might prove a new genus, and Latreille accordingly 

 placed it under the name Lamprima among his Lucanides. 

 Now it is evident that these three great naturalists were 

 all so far right, and only wrong in that Fabricius was not 

 able to connect it with Lucanus, nor Schreibers and La- 



a HiH. Nat. des Crust, et den Ins. vol. x. p. 243. 



15 Scop. Intr. Hist. Nat. p. 439. e Syst. Eleuth. vol. i. ; p. '2. , 



d Trans. Linn, Soc. vol. vi. p. 185. 



D 2 



