236 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



prosternal spine is driven with violence and a clicking noise into the 

 mesosternal groove, whereby, and in consequence of the elasticity of 

 the body, the extremity of the elytra being brought into contact with 

 the ground, and the head and thorax as suddenly again forced back- 

 wards, the insect is raised to a considerable height in the air and falls 

 generally upon its feet ; hence, these insects have received the names 

 of Skip-jacks, Spring-beetles, Clickers, and Blacksmiths, and, in Latin, 

 Elater. Swammerdam calls them Grasshopper or Locust-beetles, and 

 by old authors they were termed Notopoda. (See Observatio?is siir le 

 Nolopode, by M. Weiss. Act. Helv. vol. ii.) They are found upon 

 flowers, plants, the stumps of trees, in grass, &c., creeping slowly and 

 falling to the ground on the least approach of danger. Mr. Rudd has 

 published a short note relative to the " assembling " of the males of 

 Elater cylindricus in search of the female (^Ent07nol. Mag. vol. ii. 

 p. 207.). 



The number of species in this family is not so great as in the 

 BuprestidfB, nor are these insects to be compared with the latter in the 

 richness of their colours, being, for the most part, of obscure and dingy 

 hues. Some few, however, offer exceptions to this observation, as 

 the Selatosomus aeneus, Elater sanguineus, &c. They appear to be 

 more generally distributed than the Buprestidae, about seventy species 

 being inhabitants of this country ; they are of a moderate size, but few 

 species attaining the length of two inches, and ^e\v being under a 

 quarter of an inch. 



The larvae of these insects are long and slender, and feed upon 

 vegetable matters, under the bark of trees, &c., Messrs. Kirby and 

 Spence consider them (or at least that of Agriotes segetis, or the wire- 

 worm) as referrible to the chilognathiform type, and as to shape, best 

 representing the full grown lulus. De Geer has described and figured 

 (vol. iv. pi. 5.) the larva of one of the species (El. undulatus Pk., 

 3-fasciatus GylL, undatus Gm.), found under stones, in the ground, 

 and in rotten wood. It is long, narrrow, and somewhat depressed, 

 with very short antennae, palpi, and six legs, and with twelve seg- 

 ments, exclusive of the head, covered with a hard and scaly skin, 

 the last segment forming a nearly circular plate, with a recurved and 

 3-dentate margin, and terminated by two short pilose horns curved 

 inwardly. On the underside, this segment is furnished with a large 

 fleshy retractile tubercle, employed as a seventh leg. Messrs. Kirby 

 and Spence mention this tubercle as being placed in a nearly semi- 



