336 INSECTA. 



FAMILY III. 

 SERRICORNES. 



In the third family(l) of pentamerous Coleoptera, as in the 

 preceding and following families of the same order, we find 

 but four palpi. The elytra cover the abdomen, which, with 

 some other characters, distinguish the Insects which compose 

 it from the Brachelytra just mentioned. The antennae, with 

 some exceptions, are equal throughout, or smaller at the ex- 

 tremity, dentated, either like a saw or a comb, or even like a 

 fan, and in this respect are most developed in the males. The 

 penultimate joint of the tarsi is frequently bilobate or bifid. 

 These characters are rarely found in the following family, 

 that of the Clavicornes, to which we arrive by such insensi- 

 ble gradations, that to define its limits rigorously becomes a 

 very difficult matter. 



Some, in which the body is always firm and solid, and most 

 commonly oval or elliptical, with partly contractile legs, have 

 the head plunged vertically into the thorax up to the eyes ; 

 and the presternum, or median portion of that thorax, elon- 

 gated, dilated or reaching to beneath the mouth, usually distin- 

 guished on each by a groove in which the antennas always 

 short are lodged, and prolonged posteriorly into a point, 

 which is received into a depression of the anterior extremity of 



(1) The Silphse are the only pentamerous Coleoptera in which, as in the pre- 

 ceding - ones, we find an excrementitious apparatus; but it is not binary as in the lat- 

 ter, and the exterior canal opens directly into the rectum, like the urethra of Birds. 

 From these considerations then it would seem that the Silphse, as well as other 

 Clavicornes, should come directly after the Brachelytra. Other considerations had 

 led me to a similar approximation. See preface to my Consid. Gener. sur l'Ordre 

 Nat. des Crust., &c. According- to M. Leon Dufour, who has furnished me with 

 these anatomical remarks, the hepatic ducts of the Buprestides and Enterides, or 

 of my Sternoxi, in number, length, and mode of insertion, resemble those of the 

 Carabici. The Lampyrides and Melyrides, also, have but two hepatic vessels, but 

 there are four in Telephorus, Lycus, and Ptinus. Of all the Insects of this (Serri- 

 corne) family, whose organization he has investigated, he finds the longest alimen- 

 tary canal in Malachius, Drilus, and Anobium. 



