TILLUS. 129 
Fam. CLERIDA. 
For the purposes of this work the Cleride are treated as a simple family of the 
Malacoderm tribe. The characters which separate them are so trenchant that Lacordaire 
has given them coordinate rank with the whole of the Malacodermata. We have here, 
as in the preceding family, carnivorous beetles, but with a firm corneous exoskeleton. 
The antenne are of the true serricorn type, but are modified into the clavate form in 
the majority of the genera. The Cleride are predaceous, feeding upon the larve, and. 
perhaps upon the perfect insects, of many wood-boring beetles. Hence they are 
generally of a cylindrical or depressed form, which permits of their penetrating the 
bores of such insects. Some few, however, are rather inquilines in their habits, chiefly 
among the Corynetides ; and some have the reputation of inhabiting, by preference, the 
nests and cells of Hymenoptera, upon whose larve their own are nourished. 
Subfam. 7ZLLIDES. 
The Tillides are not so extensively represented in America as in the Old World and 
the East. Two genera only are found in Central America. Hitherto a single species 
of Tillus (T. collaris, Spin.) has been found on the northern continent, and there only 
in the United States. 
TILLUS. 
Tillus, Oliv. Ent. ii. no. 22 (1790). 
Many of the species referred to Tillus, and so recorded in the Munich Catalogue, 
do not belong to the genus or subfamily. Typical Z%d/i occur in Europe and the 
northern parts of Africa and in Arabia, also in India and the Eastern Isles as far as 
Japan, and one, as noticed above, in North America. 
1. Tillus occidentalis. (Tab. IX. fig. 1.) 
Niger, nitidus, parce pilosus; capitis fronte, ore, antennis basi, palpis tibiisque rufo-piceis; elytris macula 
subbasilari fasciaque ad suturam versus basin recurvata albis, eburatis; antennis 10-articulatis, articulis 
quarto ad nonum fortiter dentatis. Long. 3-5 millim. 
Hab. Mexico (Sallé); Guaremata, Chacoj, Pantaleon (Champion); Nicaracua, 
Chontales (Belt). 
Head and thorax densely and coarsely punctured, the former dark reddish in front, 
the latter usually black, but sometimes tinged with red on the front margin and at the 
base, where it is also suddenly contracted. The antenne are, in the smaller examples, 
two thirds of the length of the body; the first joint swollen moderately, the second very 
small, the third triangular, one angle internal, the fourth to the ninth strongly dentate, 
the width being greater than the length; the tenth oval. The elytra are shining, 
sparsely punctured, more strongly so at the sides and near the base. In the female (?) 
the antenne are shorter in proportion, and the elytra do not cover the apex of the 
abdomen. Only five examples have been captured, in addition to two in Sallé’s collection. 
The specimen figured is an example from Chacoj. 
BIOL. CENTR.-AMER., Coleopt., Vol. III. Pt. 2, June 1882. S 
