214 



COLEOPTERA 



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

 be touched, even very shghtly, Ijy 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 w^ould lead 

 to the lielief 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 

 I'aussi have been observed to eat the eggs 

 and larvae of the ants. The larva o^Faussvs 

 is not known,^ and Eaffray doubts whether 

 it lives in the ants' nests. There are about 

 200 species of Paussidae known, Africa, Asia 

 and Australia being their chief comitries ; 

 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 

 occupy has been much discussed ; the only 

 forms to which they make any real ap- 

 proximation are Caraljidae, of tiie group 

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

 ineister and others have therefore placed the Paussidae in the 

 series Adephaga, but we follow Eaffray 's view (he l^eing the most 

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

 an anomalous group not intimately connected with any other 

 family of Coleoptera, though having more aftinity to Carabidae 

 than to anything else. The recently discovered genus Proto- 

 paussvs 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 l)y Raffray is erroneous ; in a specimen of the 

 genus Artliro^derus the writer has dissected, he finds that there 

 ^ Descriptions of larvae that may possibly be those of Paussids have been pub- 

 lished by Xambeu, Ann. Soc. Linn. Lyon, xxxix. 1892, p. 137, and Ericlison, Arch. 

 Naturrjcsch. xiii. 1847, p. 275. 



- Arch. Mns. Paris (2), viii. and ix. 1887. 



Fig. 98. — Paussus cej)ha 

 lotes 6. El Hedjaz 

 (After Raflfray.) 



