438 SYNTELIIDA. 
Fam. SYNTELIIDA*. 
Tarsi quinque-articulati, simplices, articulis basalibus quatuor equalibus. Antenne subgeniculatee ; clava lata, 
compressa. Abdomen e segmentis quinque ventralibus, septem dorsalibus, totis corneis, compositum. 
Coxe anteriores conico-cylindrice, sat exserte, contigue. Coxe posteriores valde transverse, contigue. 
Elytra abbreviata. 
The genus Syntelia was ascribed by Westwood to the Trogositide, but it has recently 
been rejected from that family by Léveillé, and is until now therefore without precise 
location. It is clear that it cannot be placed in the Trogositide, but is allied to the 
Silphide and Histeride, and should be treated, I think, as the type of a separate family 
to be placed near to the two families I have just mentioned. The genus has already 
been indicated as the type of a new family by Lewis (Ent. Monthly Mag. xix. p. 137), 
but is at present without detailed description or characters. The latter I have endea- 
voured to supply above, but more detail will be found in the description of the genus 
Syntelia below. The only genus that can at present be certainly placed in the family 
is Syntelia; but Spherites, whose position has been varied from the Histeride to 
the Silphide, shows so many points of resemblance with Syntelia that I think it would 
be a correct course to remove it from the Silphidee—its usual position at present—and 
place it in the Synteliide as a separate subfamily thereof, characterized by the anterior 
coxal cavities being open behind, whereas they are closed by the junction of the epimera 
with the prosternal process in Syntelta. 
In the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 5th ser. xiii. p. 137, Mr. Lewis alluded to the remark- 
able genus he afterwards described under the name of Niponius, as being a member of 
the Synteliide ; but in his paper descriptive of the genus (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1885, 
pp. 331-335, t. 8) he withdrew this opinion and placed Niponius as an aberrant member 
of the Histeride. In so doing he was, I think, quite correct. Mipontus cannot be 
placed in the Synteliidee on account of its round posterior coxe, which are rather widely 
separated, and of the structure of the sterna, which agree fairly well with the Histeride, 
but are very different from those of Syntelia. 
The family Synteliide is distinguished from the Histeride by the contiguous anterior 
and hind coxe, by the transverse posterior coxe, by the want of co-adaptation between 
the pro- and mesothorax, and by the different relations of the side pieces of the meso- 
and metathorax. It agrees with the Histeride in the peculiar form of the antenne 
and in the structure of the hind body or abdomen. The family differs from the Silphide 
in the form of the antenne and mandibles, in the absence of trochantins to the front 
* By D. Suarp. 
