40 REMAEKS ON THE LlNNiEAN GENERA 



It seems superfluous to add any thing to these charac- 

 ters in order to prove the near relation which Hister bears 

 to Lucanus : but notwithstanding these, and the dentated 

 anterior tarsi, Latreille, in the third volume of the Regne 

 Animale, places his tribe Histerides betweenSilpha, L. and 

 Clerus, L. I am not aware of his reasons for this arrange- 

 ment ; but if it be on account of any resemblance of the 

 larvae, I should fear that there is an error somewhere. That 

 he is right in asserting in the Dictionnaire d'Histoire Na- 

 turelle, Art. * Escarbot,' that Hister can neither be com- 

 prised with his Lamellicorn insects nor with his Sphari- 

 diota, no one can doubt; but it is surely as clear that it 

 bears a greater affinity to both of these than either to a 

 Clerus or a Silpha. 



In the next place it seems possible that an osculant ge- 

 nus will occur somewhere about the place of Dorcas : for 

 Hister maximus, L. an insect from Senegal, approaches 

 in some degree to the form of Lucanus alces, and is re- 

 markable for having its head as exsert as any of the 

 Thalerophagous Rectdcera. But these difficulties will, I 

 trust, soon be cleared away by my learned friends the 

 Baron Dejean and Dr. Leach, who have both been of 

 late occupied with the examination of the Linnsean 

 Histeres. Not having myself studied them in detail, 

 I have adopted the principal groups of the last-mentioned 

 entomologist, given in the Zoological Miscellany, and 

 which appear prima facie to be very natural. The chasm 

 which occurs, and prevents the completion of the circle, 

 is left to be filled up at some future period, by insects 

 which are to represent the Lamprimida among the Sapro- 

 phagous Rectdcera. 



