452 INSECTA. 



or triangular joint, M . Dufour has observed, that in this genus 

 as well as in that of Asida, the crop is less developed than in the 

 Pimeliarise, and that the little valve, at which it terminates pos- 

 teriorly, is not formed of those four principal corneous or con- 

 nivent pieces of which it is composed in the preceding tribe, 

 but by the approximation of its interior fleshy columns. The 

 chylific ventricle is proportionally longer, and the spermatic 

 capsules are less numerous. These Insects, according to the 

 same naturalist, are provided with a double excrementitious 

 secreting apparatus, totally differing in structure from that of 

 the Pentamera. It consists of two tolerably large oblong blad- 

 ders, situated altogether under the viscera of digestion and 

 generation, closely approximated to each other, with extremely 

 thin parietes, and surrounded with adhering vascular folds 

 more or less turgid; the precise point of their insertion, from 

 the utter impossibility of unrolling them, can scarcely be de- 

 termined. The same remark applies to the canals by which 

 the secreted liquid is evacuated ; they are concealed by a sort 

 of membranous diaphragm, which, by means of a fleshy pani- 

 cle, is applied to the last segment of the venter. The secreted 

 fluid issues laterally from the last annulus, and not from its 

 extremity ; it is ejected to the distance of seven or eight 

 inches, is brownish, acrid, extremely irritating, and has a pe- 

 culiar and penetrating odour. 



This tribe is formed of a single genus, that of 



Blaps. 



Those, in which the body is generally oblong, with the abdomen 

 clasped laterally by the elytra, that are most usually narrowed to- 

 wards the end, and terminated in a point or in the manner of a tail, 

 and in which the tarsi are almost similar in the two sexes, and 

 without any notable dilatation, will form our first division. 



The mentum in some is small, or hardly occupying in width more 

 than the third of that of the under part of the head, and almost 

 square or orbicular. 



Here, all the tibiae are slender, without strong ridges or teeth on 

 the outer side. The thorax is never dilated anteriorly, nor in the 

 form of a widely truncated heart. In 



