212 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



height with a loud humming noise, for the purpose, as M. Lacordaire 

 supposes, of seeking food ; but, as I should rather judge, from analogy 

 with the proceedings of our Melolontha, in search of their mates. 

 In the morning they are sometimes found under the leaves, or sticking 

 to the branches : and Say records, that a great number of specimens 

 of Dynastes Tityus were found in a cavity in an old cherry-tree near 

 Philadelphia, which was blown down by the wind (Amer. Ent. vol. i.). 

 Dynastes bilobus is found during the winter in ants' nests. (Perty.) 



Lherminier states that the giant species, D. Hercules, saws off the 

 branches of trees in Guadeloupe, and that its larva resides in rotten 

 ■wood. It is attracted by the mucilaginous substance which exudes 

 from the Sapium aucui:)arium, when wounded. {Ann. Soc. Ent. 

 France, 1837, p. 503.) 



The Phileuri burrow into the rotten trunks of trees in Brazil, and 

 but rarely fly in the twilight. Some of the species devour half-dried 

 carcases, and others are found under moist bark. 



It would be an almost endless task to detail the variations exhibited 

 by the horns and other grotesque protuberances with which the males 

 of many species are armed. It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 these horns are immovable portions of the horny skeleton, and offer 

 no real analogy with the horns of the mammalia; although it is 

 interesting, in respect to the analogies existing in remote tribes of the 

 animal kingdom, that the quadrupeds which are cornuted are herbi- 

 vorous, and as comparatively harmless as the Dynastida^. It is also 

 a curious circumstance that in the Dynastes (Hoplites Dej.) Pan, 

 the females are cornuted as well as the males. One of the most 

 singular species is the INIacropus longimanus, in which the anterior 

 femora are twisted and dentate, and the tibia? very long and curved. 

 Another interesting group from Mexico and Chili has been separated 

 from Dynastes by Mr. Hope, under the name of Golofa, in which 

 the head and thorax are armed with upright horns, and the anterior 

 tarsi of the males very long, and articulated in such a manner that 

 they cannot be extended except in a curved line. 



The metropolis of the Dynastidae is evidently within the tropical 

 zone, six or eight species being only found in Europe ; the proportion 

 of tropical species, as compared with extra tropical, being, according 

 to Mr. MacLeay, as eight to one. 



From the Trogidae these insects are at once distinguished by their 

 arge size and concealed labrum ; but the characters which separate 



