﻿94 BRITISH BEETLES. 



outer side^ and their head is short and sunk in the tho- 

 rax. Our species of Choleva (having the antennse but 

 little clubbed, and with the eighth joint very small) are 

 described in Murray's monograph of the genus Caf.ops 

 (Annals and Magazine of Nat, Hist., July, 1856), and 

 the members of the rarer, smaller, and closely allied 

 genus Colon (in which the antennse have the eighth joint 

 nearly as large as the ninth, and the hinder femora of 

 the males are often very strongly and sharply toothed on 

 the lower side) are described by Dr. Kraatz, in the 

 Stettin Ent. Zeit., 1850, and also by M. Tournier in 

 the French Annales, 1863 : in this genus tlie front tarsi 

 are not always widened in the male. The little Adelops 

 and Leptinus are conspicuous from their want of eyes ; 

 the former, also, having but four joints to the anterior 

 tarsi. Both of our single species of these genera are 

 very rare, and live in rotten vegetable matter. The 

 metallic, Hister-\\ke Sphcerites has the basal joint of the 

 antennse long, and is found in the north of Scotland, in 

 dead animals, etc. 



The ScYDM.^NiD.E are all extremely small, and more 

 or less pubescent, living in vegetable refuse and muck- 

 heaps : the largest, Eumicrus tarsatus (Plate VI, Fig. 

 2) is common in cucumber frames, etc. They are ap- 

 terous, Avith the elytra covering the abdomen (which has 

 six segments) ; the tarsi five-jointed; the coxse conic; 

 the hinder legs widely separated; the maxillary palpi 

 long, and the eyes strongly granulated. Descriptions 

 and figures of most of our species are to be found in 

 Denny's ' Monographia Pselaphidarura et Scydmrenida- 

 rum Britannise,' 1825, Norwich. 



The Anisotomid.e differ from the Silp/iida chief!}'' 

 in having the posterior trochanters small and not pro- 



