P A U S U S D E N T I C O R N I S .
GENERIC CHAIlACTEll.
Antenna confifting of two joints, the exterior one clavated and furniihed with a hook, or fpinous procefs.
S P E C IF IC CHARACTER.
Brown: wing-cafes fafcous on the back, with a brown poflerior fpot on each: club o f the antennae
foliaceous, with a fingle tooth.
P a u s u s D e n t i c o r n i s : .brunneus elytris dorfo fufcis: macula poftice brunnea, antennamm clava
foliácea uuidentata.
The firft account o f the Paufus genus appears in a fmall tra d written by Linnaeus, and publillied at Upfal,
in the year 1775, under the title o f Bigas Inseciorum, &c. This paper contains likewife a defcription ot
the Diopfis genus, which, together with the Paufus, are unqueftionably two of the moft fingular genera of
the many tribes o f infeds hitherto difcovered. Both may poffibly derive fonie additional celebiity alfo
from the recolledVion that the diflertation in which they are inferted concluded the Entomological labours
o f that diflinguiftjed naturalift: it was the laft he ever publiihed in the department o f zoology.
In the diflertation alluded to, the Paufus genus is exemplified by the fpecies Microcephalus, Diopfis by
Ichneumonea, a plate with figures of both which, drawn by J . Afzelius, and engraved by Berquifl, accompany
tbe defcriptions. I t is to this plate, and the original defcriptions of Linnaeus, that Fuefly is indebted
folely for the account he gives o f both thefe genera in his Archiv. der Insectengeschichte, printed at Zurich in
1783. The figures are precifely copies o f thofc engraved by Berquifl, as are likewife thofe contained in the
French tranflation o f that work which afterwards appeared in Paris. Indeed, as ProfeiTor Afzelius has fug-
gefted, from the repeated errors that appear in thofe works in Iraiiflating the LinniBan obfervations, defining
the cha raa er o f the Paufus genus, &c. it is very likely that neither i'uefly, nor his tranflalors, Herbft,
Graelin, and fome other writers who have treated on it, ever faw an in fe a of the Paufus genus; the fame
might be truly faid o f the Diopfis genus alfo.
Ih u n b e rg during his travels through the country o f the Hottentots in 1772, found two coleopterous
infeas which he conceived with much propriety ought to be referred to a new genus, neither of thofe efta-
bliihed previous to his departure from Europe by Linnsus being calculated to admit tliera. But on his return
to Sweden, he found th at Linnaeus in his abfence had defcribed that of Paufus, or as he called it PauiTus,
to which they might be referred. An account of thefe was afterwards inferted in the Tranfactions of the
Royal Academy of Stockholm for 1781 : this paper is accompanied with a figure o f only one o f the infeas
mentioned, lineata, a fpecies very aptly named from the d iflina longitudinal ftreak on each o f the wing-
cafes, and which is dearly o f the fame natural family as the Liimiean Paufus Microcephalus; the otJier
in fe a defcribed by Thunberg he calls ruber.—Fabricius configns thefe, witli the Linncean in fe a , to his
genus Ccrocoma.
The lateft hiftory of the Paufus genus is from the pen of Profeflbr Afzelius, a learned, copious, and elaborate
paper, inferted in the fourth volume o f the Tranfaaions o f tlie Linnsean Society. He defcribes Paufus
Microcephalus, and alfo another kind which he found in Africa, and names Sphsroides. We may juflly
regret, on the perufal o f this excellent paper, that only tw'o fpecies of the Paufus were known to this writer.—
Neither o f thofe in fe a s are allied to the four following fpecies, which appear to be entirely undefcribed.
For this important acccflion of new fpecies to a genus heretofore fo little known, and, in confequence fo
imperfeaiy underftood, we are indebted to the aa iv e and praife-worlhy zeal of M r. Fichtel, in compliment
to whom one o f them is named Ficluclii. They were all found in Uie vicinity o f Bengal.