Crypticina. | HETEROMERA. fi 
in Europe, of which one genus and one species occur in Britain ; they 
may be distinguished from the preceding by having the hind coxe not 
widely separate, the femora not elongate, the epipleure of the elytra 
narrower, and the fact that the prosternum is furnished with a short 
process behind the anterior coxe, and from the Pedinina and Opatrina 
by the entire clypeus, and by not having the anterior tibie dilated at 
apex. 
CRYPTICUS, Laitreille. 
This genus contains upwards of thirty species, of which thirteen are 
found in Europe, and the remainder have been described from Syria, 
Algeria, the Canary Islands, Siberia, Ceylon, &c.; they are small or 
moderate-sized insects, winged, with the antenne and legs slender, and 
the third joint of the antennz only one and a half times as long as the 
second ; the thorax is large and ample, alittle broader than elytra, emar- 
ginate at base; the upper surface is smooth and glabrous, and moderately 
convex. 
The larva and pupa of C. quisquilius are described and figured by Schiddte (l.c. 
pp. 536, 586, pl. vii. fig. 1, 5); the larva is very long and slender, being thirteen 
times as long as broad (that of Blaps similis being only eight times longer than its 
breadth) ; the head is moderately large, and is furnished near each antenna with 
three very minute ocelli; the prothorax is longer than the two following segments 
together, and the anal segment is moderately long and rounded at apex; the front 
pairs of legs are comparatively long and stout, and are evidently fossorial; the colour 
is almost entirely yellowish ; the pupais much longer than broad, and is furnished at 
the sides of the segments with dentate excrescences or plates (termed by Schiddte 
‘*lamine motorie’’) bearing long sete; the apex is terminated by two moderately 
long and sharp cerci; the insect in all its stages is found in sandhills. 
‘¢ ©. quisquilius, L. Subovate, convex, glabrous, black, rather 
shining, with the head and thorax very finely and the elytra less finely 
and more distinctly punctured ; antennz rather long and slender; head 
much narrower than thorax, which is large, and rather broader at base 
than elytra, and is furnished on disc with two more or less obsolete 
impressions ; elytra broadest a little behind middle, gradually narrowed 
to apex, with faint traces of strie; legs long, black or pitchy. 
L. 5-6 mm. 
Male with the last joint of the maxillary palpi very large, sublunate, 
and the last ventral segment of abdomen truncately rounded at apex. 
Female with the last joint of the maxillary palpi slightly securiform, 
and the last ventral segment of the abdomen semicircular. 
Sandy places on the coast—at roots of grass, and in moss; somewhat local, but 
not uncommon; Southend; Sheerness; Felixstowe; Brandon, Suffolk; Great 
Yarmouth; Hunstanton; Dover; Deal; Sandwich; Hastings; Chesil Beach ; 
Weymouth; Scilly Islands; Rhyl, N. Wales; Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire ; not 
recorded from the northern counties of England or from Scotland; Ireland, Port- 
marnock near Dublin and Belfast district. 
