224 
haps no member of the zoological woild has ever been the 
subject of so much division of opinion among naturalists— 
the anomalous structure and strange embodiment of forms 
presented in its anatomy being of such a character as to 
baffle their ingenuity. The rarity, too, of the species is 
remarkable. The specimen exhibited is one of the three 
known at present in collectiDns in England, that in the 
National Collection at South Kensington, and that of Mr. 
Alexander Fry, late of E,io Janeiro, now of London, being 
the only others. Upon the Continent five or six specimens 
are known in various museums. 
M. Uesmarest, in the year 1832, was the first to describe 
the insect, from an unique specimen, he considering it allied 
to the Necrophaga, or Burying Beetle family. It is quite 
evident, however, from his figure, faithfully reproduced in 
Westwoods Arcana Entomologica, vol. I., plate X., that he 
had not studied the head; that being altogether misrepre- 
sented in the illustration. 
Nor was Gistl more fortunate in his delineation, who, in 
1837, having overlooked Desmarest’s description and figure, 
published an account of the same insect under the name 
Mesoclastus Paradoxus, deeming it to belong to a new 
family of Coleoptera — the Xenomorphse. 
Mr. Westwood (Arc. Entom., vol. I., p. 35) quotes his own 
and M. Burmeister’s opinion that the insect is a Longicorn, 
and this is shared by the majority of Entomologists of the 
present day. Gemminger and von Harold in their cata- 
logus Coleoptrorum, vol. VI II., p. 2753, assign it a place in 
the Cerambycidse or Longicornes, near Prionacalus and 
Psalidognathus, and not far removed from Cyrtognathus 
and Dorysthenes ; this arrangement is the same as that of 
Lacordaire, vol. VIII., p. 30; in which, however, he places 
it as forming a distinct sub-family among the “ Prionides 
vrais,” the Hypocephalidse. 
