17 



structure. If tliis view be correct, it would follow that Lacordaire 

 confounded the two parts, when he speaks of the ligula as "coruee, 

 avec une bordure membraneuse en avant." I may add, however, that 

 the articulated front portion of the mentum just alluded to is further 

 proved to have no connection with the ligula, from the fact of a similar 

 line, or suture, being likewise traceable in Parmnecosoma, Ephistemus, 

 and GryptopJiagus, in which instances it is quite unmistakeable ; though 

 it is there less straightened, and removed to a much greater distance 

 from the anterior margin of the mentum. 



The mandibles of Latridius ai'e short, much incurved, and very 

 acute at the tip (which, however, is minutely bifid) ; and they are fur- 

 nished internally with a large, but extremely delicate, ciliated mem- 

 brane.* The maxillary palpi have their second and third joints greatly 

 inflated, but the terminal one narrower and cylindric. 



With respect to the affinities of the Lalridiidce, their exact situation 

 amongst the families to which they are manifestly allied is, I am well 

 aware, open for consideration, — according to the precise views of parti- 

 cular systematists. Yet few have attempted to place them elsewhere 

 than towards the end of the Necrofhaga — either in juxta-position with 

 the GryptophagidcB and Mycetophagidce, or else but slightly separated 

 from them. Indeed, between those tivo families has always seemed to me 

 to be their most natural location ; and I cannot but believe that the 

 uotiuu uf removing them far away, into sections of the Coleoptera entirely 

 remote from the usual one, has arisen mainly from the tacit assumption 

 that their general structure is anomalous. Yet, in reality, I think that it 

 is merely the inaccuracy of published diagnoses which has favoured 

 such an hypothesis ; for certainly, if their labial palpi are to be regarded 

 as "bi-articulate," and their maxillae as necessarily (and rigidly) only 

 "single-lobed," there would, when their trimerous feet are taken into 

 account, be some fovmdation for the above idea. Yet when rightly 

 understood, their oral organs are reduced to the very simplest and most 

 commonplace type, scarcely differing, in anything essential, from those 

 of Atomaria, EpJiistemus, AntheropTiagtis, Paramecosoma, and Gryptopha- 

 gus. This may be easily tested l)y a comparison of the corresponding 

 details of each, when it will be seen that, except in relative proportions, 

 such as would properly constitute generic characters, there is really 

 very little in which they recede from each other ; in fact the peculiar 

 (more or less hexagonal) form of the mentum, a most significant part, 



* Lacordaire defines them as simple at the apex, and makes this fact one of the distinctions which 

 separate Latridius from Corticaria (in which l.itter he says tliey are minutely bifid). But the mandi- 

 bles now before me, of the L. minutus and nodifer, have their extreme point most undoubted cleft ; 

 thougl), as is often the case in this particular structure, it is not readily conspicuous in profile. Duval, 

 with his usual precision, has described them correctly. 



