Excerpt from On the Genera of the Cossonidae

Having determined during the past winter to examine critically the structural characters of the various genera of the Cossom'a'ce (so far as accessible) which have hitherto been published, I soon perceived that a very small pro portion of the numerous species which were submitted to me could by any possibility be embraced by the 29 groups which were acknowledged by Lacordaire, and which have been admitted subsequently (with two or three additions) into the Munich catalogue. And moreover the excessive inaccuracy of the greater number of the diagnoses, as given by Lacordaire - for which however he was not himself responsible, they having simply been epitomized, at times perhaps somewhat in haste, from the different authors by whom they were originally compiled), made it but too evident that, in order to define them aright, no asserted peculiarity could be trusted as necessarily true, but that every single feature would have to be collated afresh, and on an independent basis. This being the case, it will at once be seen that my object in the present memoir has not been to monograph the species; and therefore in two or three extensive and well-established genera, such as Cossonus and Rhyncolus, I have been content to select a few types, from distant parts of the world, and to treat them as representing their respective groups. Yet this very method of proceeding has involved the necessity of examining at any rate certain Species with the utmost care; and as an accurate list of these will be found at the close of my paper, it follows that the members of the family which are there catalogued (amounting to 253) may be looked upon as arranged systematically in accord ance with my own views.

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