Buprestide. | SERRICORNIA, 67 
BUPRESTIDZ. 
This genus contains a very large number of genera and species; in 
the catalogue of the Buprestidae published by. Gemminger and Von 
Harold in 1869 one hundred and fourteen genera and about two 
thousand seven hundred species are enumerated, and in the supplement 
published by M. Kerremans in 1883, twelve new genera and between 
nine hundred and a thousand new species have been added; by far the 
great majority of the species belonging to the family are found in 
tropical countries ; they are amongst the most brilliant and strikingly 
coloured of all the Coleoptera ; in fact, owing to the splendour of their 
metallic tints, they are often mounted in articles of jewellery, and 
their elytra are employed for the embroidering of dresses, scarves, and 
other articles of wearing apparel, so that they are perhaps amongst the 
most familiar of all beetles to the ordinary observer. The representa- 
tives of the family contained in the European fauna are comparatively 
few and obscure, but two or three genera are fairly well represented in 
the south of Europe; the total number of genera that occur on the 
Continent is twenty-seven, represented by upwards of three hundred 
species ; in Britain, however, only four genera and ten species occur, 
some of which are extremely rare and are confined to the south of 
England ; only two species are found very rarely in Scotland. 
The following are the chief characters of the Buprestide 
vertical, with the mandibles short and stout, inserted into the thorax as 
far as the eyes, which are very large, elliptical, and never emarginate; 
antenne inserted upon the front, 11 jointed, short, usually serrate, at 
least towards apex. 
Thorax fitting closely to elytra, prosternum with a process behind 
which fits into the mesosternum, or sometimes attains the metasternum; 
anterior coxal cavities open behind; mesosternum short, with the 
epimera reaching the cox ; metasternum with broad episterna, and with 
the epimera visible; elytra covering abdomen, or leaving only the 
pygidium exposed, wings ample; abdomen apparently composed of only 
five segments; legs short, tarsi 5-jointed. 
The larvee are very remarkable, being chiefly distinguished by the great develop- 
ment of the prothoracie segment, the smallness of the head, and the rudimentary 
condition or total absence of the legs; the head is retractile within the prothorax, 
the antennez are very short, and there are no visible ocelli; the mandibles are short, 
hard, and toothed at the extremity and eminently fitted for gnawing the wood in 
which they live; the maxilla, however, are very small; the meso- and metathorax 
are much shorter and narrower than the prothorax ; the abdominal segments are nine 
in number, the anal segment being projecting and presenting the appearance of a 
tenth segment; the stigmata are crescent-shaped, and consist of nine pairs, of which 
eight are situated on the eight first segments of the abdomen and the ninth on the 
mesothorax, or between that segment and the prothorax. 
These larvee live under bark or often in solid wood, through which they bore 
galleries; hence they have often been imported, and several continental genera, 
such as Dicerca, Ptosima, Chrysobothris, &c., have been included as indigenous in 
HZ 
