613 
a Family of Coleopterous Insects. 
remark, with some degree of astonishment, that after the ob- 
servations of Mr. MacLeay in the Annulosa Javanica above 
referred to, Mr. Curtis should have stated, that “ we cannot 
help expressing some surprise, that out of the many systems 
that have been proposed, none should have released Myceto- 
phagus from its present unnatural situation, viz. from the Xylo- 
phagi or Trogositarii of Latreille.” The Systematic Catalogue, 
and Illustrations of British Entomology, of Mr. Stephens may 
also be consulted, in which the first attempt has been made to 
arrange these various genera in accordance with Mr. MacLeay ’s 
views, although it may perhaps be considered that this arrange- 
ment has been made upon general considerations rather than 
upon strict analytical examination and dissection. It should, 
however, be constantly borne in mind, that the characters pre- 
sented by the larvae of these various genera will tend in a great 
degree to establish their affinities upon a sure foundation, and 
it is greatly to be regretted that so little is recorded concerning 
them : hence arises the absolute necessity of attentively study- 
ing and minutely recording the peculiarities of these preparatory 
states whenever opportunity presents itself. 
Taking, therefore, the preceding observations into considera- 
tion, it is evident that in these groups Nature appears to have 
disregarded all decided regularity in the number of the joints 
of the tarsi ; and hence, if the majority of Latreille’s Xylophagi 
should be removed, — as it appears to me they ought to be, — to 
a situation in the stirps Necrophaga, the Faussidce must also 
accompany them, notwithstanding the absence of the terminal 
clavation of the antennae; but between the Paussidce and the true 
Scolytidee (which are certainly most intimately allied to the Cur- 
culionidce,) or the Bostrichidce * (compare Mr. Curtis’s Dissections 
* I exclude from this family (as Latreille indeed has done in some of his earlier works) 
the genus Cis, which has also, in my opinion, no immediate affinity with Mycetophagus. 
The genus Bostrichus Geoffroy ( Apate Fabr.) is the typical form of this family. 
of 
