COLEOPTERA. CLERlDiE. 267 



Necrobia violacea; and the Rev. F. W. Hope has described a 

 species of this genus of a reddish colour, under the name of 

 Necr. muraiarum, in Mr. Pettigrevv's Avork upon mummies. He is 

 of opinion, that the medicaments used in the {)rocess of embalmment 

 might partially have discharged the colour of the beetles, some having 

 a purple tinge. M. Champollion Figueac has also published a note 

 respecting the same or a closely allied species found in a mummy, 

 and described by Jurine under the name of Corynetes glaber (inter- 

 mediate between rufipes and abdominalis), Magasin. Encycloped., 

 Paris, May, 1814. 



The genus Corynetes Fab. is very nearly allied to Necrobia, with 

 which it is often confounded ; the species are found upon flowers and 

 in hedges as well as in houses. The following observations upon 

 Cor. violaceus, made by the late General Hardwicke, have been pub- 

 lished by Mr. Curtis : — " When at Wisbeach, in October last, my 

 attention was drawn to the depredations going on in the plank of a 

 deal box, in which I found the larvse of a small Coleopterous insect 

 (Cor. violaceus) embedded in dust, which their little jaws had pro- 

 duced between the upper and lower surfaces of the plank ; I found, 

 also, in the same dust, the cocoon of the pupa of some of the 

 larvae, of a soft, silk}^, leathery texture, not unlike what are formed by 

 the clothes-eating moths when the larva assumes the pupa state. In 

 this cocoon there appeared to be three cells, two of them unoccupied, 

 the third closed and full ; I therefore enclosed the cocoon with the 

 bit of plank in a box, to secure the insect, when it might become an 

 imago, which occurred about six days after." (^JBrit. Entomol. 

 fol. 351.). As however we have already seen that the larva; of some 

 of these insects prey upon the wood-boring Anobia, and as no species 

 has been ascertained to feed naturally upon (although found in) wood, 

 I feel inclined to regard this communication as relating to two distinct 

 insects, the previous part to an Anobium, and the latter to a Cory- 

 netes, which had destroyed the other, and the account of the two 

 empty cells seems to confirm such an opinion. 



Amongst the characters given by Mr. Curtis, separating Necrobia 

 from Corynetes, are especially mentioned the 4-jointed tarsi, and 

 the posteriorly angulated thorax in the former, but in N. Mumiarum 

 (which I carefully examined, and figured in Mr, Pettigrew's work), I 

 observed five joints in the tarsi, the fourth being small, and the 

 thorax posteriorly rounded at the angles. 



