332 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



40. 11. and 12. These insects are of a larger size tlian the Bruchides, 

 and are not so injurious in their habits, being generally found amongst 

 old wood, or on the trunks of trees or in flowers. The largest British 

 species Platyrhinus latirostris {ji(j' 40. 8.) inhabits fungi growing upon 

 ash trees (as I am informed by W. Raddon, Esq.) ; upon Avetting the 

 outside of which the insects make their appearance externally, in 

 order to sip up the moisture. C. C. Babington, Esq. has also found it 

 in Sphaeria fraxinea. 



M. Dufour was the first entomologist who discovered the parasitical 

 connection of some of these insects with the Coccidae, having obtained 

 the Erachytarsus scabrosus from a cocoon, or rather from what 

 appeared to Latreille ( Hist. Nat. £^c. xi. 37.) to be the skin of a 

 female Coccus. Dalman has also published a notice to the same effect 

 in the Sivedish Trans. for 1824', relative to an Anthribus of the size of a 

 pea,of which thespecific name is not given, but which is most probably 

 the before-mentioned species, and of the certainty of which connexion 

 no doubts could exist, as he placed an Anthribus with a Coccus in a 

 bottle, and some time afterwards the pupa of an Anthribus was found 

 in the body of the Coccus (Bull. Sc. Nat. Sept. 1825.). M. Vallot 

 has also published a similar account in the Annales cles Sciences Na- 

 turelles for 1828 ; and Ratzeburg has given an account of the trans- 

 formations and habits of Brachytarsus (Anthribus) varius {Jig. 40. 17.), 

 which destroys the Cocci in great numbers, and passes the winter 

 in the pine forests, in his Forst- Insccteti, from which the accompanying 

 figure 40. 18. of the larva is taken. 



In many of tlie species, the males are distinguished by the greater 

 length of the antennae, which sometimes exceed the entire length of 

 the body. This is more especially the case with the remarkable 

 Javanese insect figured by M. Gaede in the 3Iag. de Zoologie 

 of M. Guerin, under the name of Acanthothorax longicornis, the 

 male antennae of which are not less than three times as long as the 

 bod}' ; the prosternum is also armed with two strong teeth ; the 

 antennae of the females are short. Schonherr has subsequently 

 described it under the name of Mecocerus gazella. 



A small exotic insect, apparently belonging to this family, from the 

 structure of the rostrum, has been described by Count Fischer de 

 Walldheim (Entom. Muss. vol. ii.), and reared by him from the grains 

 of the Robinia jubata, from the mountains of Altai in Siberia ; and by 

 Gebler from the Nitraria Schoberi ; the elytra, however, are flexible ; 



