30 



Descriptions of New 



sibly he overlooked. I would willingly suppose that the 100 

 species of this family contained in European collections, and 

 principally derived from Europe and North America, agreed 

 with Lacordaire's description, and that the Ceylon species 

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

 vation, alluded to above, corroborated my own, thus rendering 

 me suspicious of some unaccountable mistake or oversight 

 somewhere or other. That this mistake cannot 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 res- 

 pect been bestowed upon this work, and from the same remarks 

 being repeated in different words. Where then this mistake 

 is, upon what ground it rests — it would, under my circum- 

 stances, be useless to attempt to unravel. However, it appears 

 certain to me that some more detailed and positive remarks 

 on the subject cannot 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 Scydmamida? (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 open- 

 ing could have been effected by pressure. On opening the 

 elytra fully, I had no difficulty in discovering the wings. 

 Rendered extremely curious by this discovery — diametrically 

 opposed to the distinct statement of so great an authority as 

 the one just alluded to — I now examined other species, and 

 all with the same result, most of them opening the elytra 

 without my assistance, in the same manner as S. alatus, and 

 I have not the slightest doubt, that when a sufficient number 

 of specimens will enable me to examine the rest, it will still 

 be with the same result. That these insects use their organs 



