214 



COLEOPTERA 



CHAP. 



the Paussus then makes no resistance to its hosts ; if, however, it 

 be touched, even very slightly, by an observer, it immediately 

 bombards : the ants, as may be imagined, do not approve of this, 

 and run away. Nothing has ever been observed that would lead 

 to the belief that the ants derive any benefit from the presence 

 of the Paussi, except that these guests bear on some part of the 

 body frequently the great impressions on thepronotum patches 

 of the peculiar kind of pubescence that exists in many other kinds 

 of ants'-nest beetles, and is known in some of them to secrete a 

 substance the ants are fond of, and that the ants have been seen 



to lick the beetles. On the other hand, the 

 Paussi have been observed to eat the eggs 

 and larvae of the ants. The larva of Paussus 

 is not known, 1 and E affray doubts whether 

 it lives in the ants' nests. There are about 

 200 species of Paussidae known, Africa, Asia 

 and Australia being their chief countries ; 

 one species, P. favieri, is not uncommon 

 in the Iberian peninsula and South France, 

 and a single species was formerly found in 

 Brazil. The position the family should 

 FIG. 98. Paussus cepha- occupy has been much discussed ; the only 

 (After Raffray.) forms to which they make any real ap- 



proximation are Carabidae, of the group 



Ozaenides, a group of ground beetles that also crepitate. Bur- 

 meister and others have therefore placed the Paussidae in the 

 series Adephaga, but we follow Eaffray's view (he being the most 

 recent authority on the family), 2 who concludes that this is 

 an anomalous group not intimately connected with any other 

 family of Coleoptera, though having more affinity to CarabkLie 

 than to anything else. The recently discovered genus Proto- 

 paussus has eleven joints to the antennae, and is said to come nearer 

 to Carabidae than the previously known forms did, and we may an- 

 ticipate that a more extensive knowledge will show that the family 

 may find a natural place in the Adephaga. The description of 

 the abdomen given by E affray is erroneous ; in a specimen of the 

 genus Arthropterus the writer has dissected, lie finds that there 

 1 Descriptions of larvae that may possibly be those of Paussicls have been pub- 

 lished by Xambeu, Ann. Soe. Linn. Lyon, xxxix. 1892, p. 137, and Erich.son, Arch. 

 Xatiirycsch. xiii. 1847, p. 275. 



- Arch. Mus. Paris (2), viii. and ix. 1SS7. 



