80 SERRICORNIA. {Elateride. 
increased since that time; thirty-three genera and about three hundred 
and eighty species occur in Europe, of which seventeen genera, containing 
sixty-one species, are found in Britain; the family, therefore, is con- 
siderably better represented by indigenous species than is the case with 
the Buprestide. 
The chief characteristic of the family, and that from which it derives 
its name (the word ‘Elater” being the Greek for a “driver” or 
“ jumper”), is the power that its members possess of springing into the 
air when placed on their back; this is effected by depressing the head 
backwards so as to form a slight arch, a movement which brings the 
strong prosternal process to the anterior part of the mesosternal cavity ; 
the muscles are then suddenly relaxed, and the spine descends suddenly 
into the cavity; by the force of this sudden movement upon the 
slightly arched body the base of the elytra is caused to strike the sup- 
porting surface with some violence, and the whole body is forced 
upwards ; this property is necessarily coexistent with a loose articula- 
tion between the pro- and mesothorax, which, as pointed out by Dr. 
Horn and others, is a remarkable character in the majority of the genera 
of the family. 
This power of leaping, as above shown, is also possessed by several 
of the Eucnemide, and it is on account of this, to a great extent, that 
many authors include them with the Elateride. 
The following are some of the chief characters that distinguish the 
family :—Head usually more or less sunk in thorax, but occasionally 
free with the eyes prominent; eyes, as a rule, not prominent, round ; 
antenne pectinate, serrate, or somewhat filiform, inserted low down on 
the forehead, distant at base, sometimes received in grooves ; mandibles 
bifid at apex, maxille with two lobes, the outer one very small, 
maxillary palpi with the last joint, as a rule, scuriform; prothorax 
loosely articulated with mesothorax, prosternum produced into a process 
behind which is received in an excavation in the middle of the meso- 
sternum; anterior coxal cavities open behind; mesosternum short, meta- 
sternum usually long ; elytra almost always covering the abdomen (very 
rarely abbreviated in the female), scutellum visible; abdomen composed 
of five segments ; legs moderately long or short, usually slender, tarsi 
5-jointed either simple or, rarely, lobed, claws simple, toothed or 
pectinate. 
The species as a rule are sombre-coloured, and in this respect differ 
from the Buprestide; a few, however (such as Hlater sangwineus and 
its allies, Corymbites ceneus, &c.), are conspicuous; some of the exotic 
species attain to a very considerable size; the members of the family 
that are best known to the ordinary student of Natural History are the 
so-called ‘ fire-flies,” which are really beetles belonging to the genus 
Pyrophorus ; the type species P. noctilucus, L., is upwards of an inch 
long, of an obscure brown colour, with an oval spot of a dull yellow 
colour near each posterior angle of the thorax; with regard to this 
