ANNULOSA JAVANICA. 37 
above described Javanese insect will be found to differ from the European S. marginatum in no 
respect, except perhaps that of size. With respect to the general affinities of the genus Sphe- 
ridium, it may be sufficient to mention, that this insect would have been a Dermestes with Lin- 
neus and Geoffroy, and an Mister with Degeer. 
Stirps 4. NECROPHAGA. Lat. 
We now come to a stirps so close in affinity te the Philhydrida, that Dumeril has combined 
them in one groupe, to which he has assigned the name of Hedocera, from the antenne in 
both being in a similar manner clavated. 
The Necrophaga, however, of Latreille, as this stirps is characterized in the Genera Insectorum 
et Crusiaceorum, vol. i, p. 239, is a most natural groupe, distinguished from the Philhydrida by 
their habits being less aquatic, their mouth being prominent, and mandibles generally ex- 
serted, The first joint of the maxillary palpi is also evanescent in this stirps, so that these organs 
may in general be described as three-jointed. Indeed it is only the Dermestide, or fifth family of the 
Necrophaga, which retains any character of the Spheridide, and the Dermestide are also among 
the least Chilopodomorphous insects of the tribe, being closely allied to the Byrrhide, and so 
leading to the Chilognathomorpha. Linneus and Geoffroy both observed the affinity existing be- 
tween the Dermestide and Spheridida, and have even described the S. scaraheoides as a Dermes- 
tes. Jit is from insects, situated between the types of these two families, that the Byrrhide take 
their rise, and lead us to the tribe of insects having Chilognathiform larvae or Chilognathomorpha. 
Although the stirps of Necrephaga comprizes many herbivorous insects, we find that each 
family composing it, has not merely a disposition to feed on animal matter, but retains, more- 
over, many vestiges of the predaceous habits of the more typical insects of the tribe. Thus 
among the Si/phide, the Silpha 4-punctata climbs the oak for the purpose of devouring the 
caterpillars, of which so many species infest this tree, Several other Si/phe attack live terres- 
trial Jollisca, just as we have seen the neighbouring stirps of Philhydrida prey on certain aqua- 
tic animals of the same sub-kingdom. ‘The disposition of many of these insects to feed on fungi, 
is in accord with a general remark to be made on carnivorous Coleoptera, namely, that as the 
aberrant insects of any groupe leave the living animal food, which forms the entire subsistence 
of the normal part of the same groupe, they prey on dead animal matter, or, in preference to 
other vegetable matter, on fungi. 
With respect to the affinities which connect the families of this stirps, I shall, according to my 
usual practice, avail myself of the argwmentum ad verecundiam, in explaining them. True it is, 
indeed, that no naturalist has yet thought of combining these observations, and the consequence 
has been, that M. Latreille, among others, has never, in his various works, given the same 
arrangement of the stirps twice. 
M. Latreille has shewn the affinity of the Dermestide and Scaphidide, in what perhaps is 
the most able of his works, I mean the Histoire Générale des Insectes, etc. vol. ix. p. 190 and 233, 
where he has made one family of them, and thus adopted an opinion of Degeer. 
In his Considérations Générales, p.176, as well as the Histoire Générale, Latreille bas more- 
over shewn the affinity of the Scaphidide to the Silphide, thus adopting an opinion of Linnzus 
and Geoffroy. 
In 
