Cryptocephalina. | PHYTOPHAGA. 287 
brachys and Stylesomus; the members of the tribe have the thorax 
margined at sides, and as broad as the elytra, to which it is closely 
applied, so that the whole form is robust and compact ; the head, as the 
name implies, is retracted and nearly hidden ; the antenne are inserted 
a little above the line of the eyes and are widely separated, and, as a 
rule, long and slender; the anterior coxal cavities are closed behind, 
and the anterior coxe are transverse, not prominent, and distant; the 
pygidium is bare, and the abdomen has the last two segments connate ; 
the legs are moderate, the anterior pair being often more or less elon- 
gated; the species, as a rule, are brightly coloured, and very often 
variegated, although a considerable number are black ; they are very 
rarely pubescent ; they occur on the leaves of various trees and shrubs, 
and are more or less gregarious in their habits; the larve have the 
forehead depressed, and the sac in which they live thicker and much 
less fragile than in Clythra. 
CRYPTOCEPHALUS, Geoffroy. 
In point of numbers this is one of the largest of all the genera of 
Coleoptera; no less than six hundred and eighty-one species are 
enumerated in the catalogue of Gemminger and Von Harold, and about 
one hundred and fifty more are recorded by Donckier de Donceel in his 
supplement published in 18865 ; besides the characters mentioned in the 
description of the tribe, they may be known by their kidney-shaped 
eyes, distinct scutellum, bifid third joint of tarsi, simple claws, and the 
fact that the thorax is sinuate and compressed on each side at base. 
The females are, as a rule, larger than the males, and often more 
strongly punctured, and may be known by the large deep round fovea 
in the middle of the last abdominal segment, in which the egg is 
retained before it is attached to the plant ; the males often have the 
last segment more or less depressed or foveate, and furnished with 
teeth, transverse carine, &c. 
The larvee of the Cryptocephali (as described by Weise, I. c. p. 189) remain, with 
their abdomen curved against the breast, in a cylindrical bag, which is narrowed 
in front, and which they can only get out of as far as the first abdominal segment, 
and drag along with them in an oblique, almost upright, position, with a jerky 
motion ; they closely resemble the larvae of Clythra, and only differ, in fact, by their 
flat and depressed head; the pupz are attached to dry leaves and stems of grass, 
and the perfect insect appears at the beginning of summer. 
Westwood (Classification, vol. 1. p. 386) has a note on the larva of 
C. 12-punctatus, and mentions that in the spring of 1827 M. Géné 
discovered several cased larve on the trunk of an oak, which changed 
on June 15th to this insect ; the head of the larva exactly fits the orifice 
of the case; the antenne are short, and 3-jointed, the mandibles 
triangular and bifid at the tip, and the legs are very long and slender ; 
the case, according to M. Géné, is formed of the excrement of the 
insect, moulded into the proper form by the assistance of its mandibles; 
