420 INSECTA. 



TACHYPORUS, Grav. 



Similar to Tachinus in the tibiae and antennae, but the termination 

 of the palpi is subulate *. 



The genus CALLICERUS, Gravenhorst, is unknown to me. The 

 STENOSTHETUS of Megeiie, mentioned [in the Catalogue, &c. of 

 Dejean, presents all the characters of a true Pselaphus, and must 

 be suppressed such also is now the opinion of this last named natu- 

 ralist. 



FAMILY III. 



SERRICORNES. 



In the third family f of pentamerous Coleoptera, as in the preced- 

 ing 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 through- 

 out, or smaller at the extremity, 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 insensible gra- 

 dations, that to define its limits rigorously becomes a very difficult 

 matter. 



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

 monly oval or elliptical, with partly contractile legs, have the head 

 plunged vertically into the thorax up to the eyes ; and the praester- 

 num, or median portion of that thorax, elongated, dilated or reach- 

 ing to beneath the mouth, usually distinguished on each by a groove 



is wide, the muzzle advances, the four posterior tarsi are evidently longer than their 

 respective tibiae, appear to form a particular division. 



* Oxyporus rufipes, Fab., Panz., Ib., XXVII, 20 ; O. marginatus, F. ; Panz., 

 Ib,, 17 ; O. chrysomelinus, Fab.; Panz., Ib., IX, 14; 0. analis, Fab.; Panz., 

 Ib., XXII, 16 ; O. abdominalis, Fab. 



f The Silptue are the only pentamerous Coleoptera in which, as in the preceding 

 ones, \ve find an excrementitious apparatus ; but it is not binary as in the latter, 

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

 From these considerations then it would seem that the Silphae, 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. Genr. sur 1'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 alimentary 

 canal in Malachius, Drilus, and Anobium. 



