COLEOPTERA. CANTHARIDiK. 297 



These insects are much variegated in their colours ; they are gene- 

 rally of a moderate size ; they subsist upon vegetable substances, a 

 few, however, are parasitic upon other insects in the larva state. 

 They counterfeit death when alarmed, and many of them, at such 

 times, emit a thick yellowish fluid from the articulations of the legs, 

 &c., of an unpleasant scent. The organs by which this matter is 

 secreted have not been observed. Many of these insects possess 

 strong vesicatorial powers, and are employed in medicine, being 

 applied externally for raising blisters, and internally as a very power- 

 ful stimulant. The latter, howevei', is a very hazardous mode of 

 treatment, requiring great care. Various species are employed in 

 different parts of the world. Our ordinary blister-fly is the Spanish 

 Cantharis vesicatoria (which is also imported very plentifully from 

 St. Petersburgh). C. vittata or the potato-fly, and C. atrata, are used 

 in North America ; C. ruficeps in Sumatra and Java ; C. gigas and 

 violacea in the East Indies ; C. atomaria in Brazil ; C. syriaca in 

 Arabia ; Meloe majalis, M. proscarabffius, and Mylabris cichorii 

 in China and the East Indies ; M. pustulata of the Cape of Good 

 Hope is used in China ; and Lydus trimaculatus in the north of 

 Europe. {Penny Mag. art. Cantharis.) The ladybird has also been 

 used ; and in the United States a species of spider supplies the place 

 of the blister-fly (Tegenaria medicinalis, Hentz, Journ. Acad. Phi- 

 ladelph., 1821, pi 5.). 



In the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, vol. xiii. p. 75., is published 

 a report upon a memoir presented by M. Bretonneau to the Academie 

 des Sciences, entitled Notice sur les Proprietes vesicantes de quelques 

 Insectes de la Famille des Cantharides, in which the vesicant 

 property is described as existing in a powerful degree in various 

 species of Mylabris, Meloe, and Cerocoma; but Sitaris humeralis does 

 not possess any vesicatory principle. 



In the same work (July, 1829) is a notice by M. Farines on the 

 vesicatory powers of Mylabris, Meloe, Ripiphorus, and Zonitis. 



These insects composed the Linnaean genus Meloe, from which 

 Geoffrey advantageously separated the vesicatory species, under the 

 name of Cantharis, by which it had been always known in medicine, 

 but which name Einnajus had improperly employed for the insects 

 composing the modern family, above described, under the name Tele- 

 phoridai. Fabricius, willing to uphold in this respect the Linnaean 

 nomenclature, retained Cantharis in its Linnaean signification, and 



