84 AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGY. 



it would induce us to believe that the diminutive male is no other 

 than the young of the female he accompanies as a mate. 



On a journey to Florida with Mr. Maclure, I obtained a female 

 which was crawling up the body of an Orange tree on Cumber- 

 land Island, Georgia. The male I had not seen until the recent 

 return of Mr. T. Peale from that country, who brought many 

 individuals of both sexes. He observed them in plenty in the 

 southern part of that region. They were generally in pairs, on 

 the Palmetto, lying close to the rib of the leaf. Mr. Peale re- 

 marked that when taken they discharge a milky fluid, from two 

 pores of the thorax, diffusing a strong odor, in a great measure 

 like that of the common Gnapthalium, or " Life everlasting ;" 

 and as this plant was growing near the place where they occurred, 

 he supposed that it constituted at least part of their food. They 

 vary much in color, but it is believed that the two dorsal yellow 

 stripes are never wanting. 



The upper figure of the plate represents the male. 



The lower figure, the female. 



LANGUBJA. Plate XXXIX. 



Generic character. Body rather slender, cylindrical ; antennae 

 with a gradually formed club of five or six joints; palpi filiform, 

 terminal joint of the labials a little larger than the others ; 

 mandibles bifid at tip ; maxillge with horny teeth ; tarsi with 

 dense hairs beneath the three basal joints, the third bilobate. 



Ohs. The manners and habits of these insects are but little 

 known, and as the species are chiefly North American, it is with 

 our entomologists that the task of investigating them will rest. 

 They have been said to frequent flowers, and I can corroborate 

 the truth of the remark, by stating that I have frequently found 

 them on flowers myself; but as Latreille observes, if they feed 

 only on the contents of the nectary, to what use can the horny 

 teeth be applied with which their jaws are furnished? This is 

 a very limited genus ; Fabricius described three species in his 

 last work on insects of this order, two from Sumatra under the 

 names of Trogosita elongata and Jili/ormis, and the other from 

 North America, under that of Trogosita bicolor. He perceived 

 that they did not altogether correspond with the other species of 

 the group to which he referred them, for when describing the 



