COLEOPTERA. 563 



like them, the under part of the three first joints of the tarsi 

 furnished with brushes and the penultimate bifid(l), by 

 their antennae, which are terminated in a very distinct and 

 perfoliated club, as well as by their maxillae, armed on the 

 inner side by a nail or corneous tooth. In some few, the 

 joints of the tarsi are entire, but they are removed from the 

 other Tetramera with analogous tarsi by their body, which is 

 almost globular and contracts into a ball. 



Their body is most commonly of a rounded form, and fre- 

 quently even very convex and hemispherical ; the antennae 

 are shorter than the body, the mandibles emarginated or 

 dentated at the extremity, and the palpi terminated by a 

 large joint ; the last joint of the maxillary palpi is very large, 

 transversal, compressed, and almost lunate. The form of their 

 organs of manducation shows them to be gnawers, and in fact 

 the species indigenous to Europe are found in the Boleti which 

 grow on the trunks of trees, under their bark, &c. 



Some have the penultimate joint of the tarsi bilobate, and 

 do not contract themselves into a ball. 



They may be reunited in the single genus 



Erotylus, Fab. 



Here, the last joint of the maxillary palpi is transversal, and almost 

 lunate or securiform. 



Erotylus, Fab. 



In the Erotyli properly so called, and from which the JEgithi, 

 Fab., do not appear to us to be essentially distinct, the intermediate 

 joints of the antennae are almost cylindrical, and the club, formed 

 by the last ones, is oblong; the interior and corneous division of 

 their maxillae is terminated by two teeth. 



They are peculiar to South America(2). 



(1) The last has a knot at base, a character also observed in the Coccinellx. 



(2) See Oliv., Col., V, 89; Schcenh., Synon. Insect., II, genera JEgithus, Eroty- 

 lus,- and the Monograph of this genus by M. Duponchel, who has continued the 

 work of Godart on the Lepidoptera of Fiance, inserted in the Me"moires du Mu- 

 seum d'Histoire Naturelle. 



