452 RHYNCHOPHORA. [ Platypodine. 
is shaken, the beetles burrowing within it answer with quite a chorus of 
squeaking, in order to hear which, the ear must be placed near the 
wood. The very rare beetle Colydium elongatum is parasitic on 
Platypus, but has hitherto been met with in Britain only in the New 
Forest. 
PLATYPUS, Herbst. 
This genus isa very large one in point of numbers and contains 
about one hundred and sixty species, which are chiefly found in North, 
Central and South America, and in Oceania (New Guinea, Borneo, the 
Moluccas, the Philippines, New Zealand, &c. ; a few have occurred in 
India and Ceylon; only two are found in Europe, one of which, 
P. oxyurus, is confined to the Pyrenees, whereas the other ranges from 
Norway and Sweden to Northern Africa, and also over Northern Asia 
and North America. 
®. cylindrus, I’. Elongate, cylindrical, slightly shining, clothed with 
sparing yellowish-grey villose pubescence, which is thicker at the apex 
of the elytra, pitchy-black, or with the head and thorax black or pitelry- 
black, and the elytra pitchy, reddish-brown, or reddish ; head large, 
with the forehead broad and depressed, eyes large and moderately pro- 
minent; antennz very short, six-jointed, with a large scape and club, 
brownish-red or reddish-testaceous ; thorax longer than broad, finely and 
obsoletely punctured, with the sides subparallel and compressed in 
middle, basal portion almost smooth with a central line; elytra deeply 
striated, the striz being scarcely punctured, interstices elevated and sub- 
costate, apex reflexed; legs red or castaneous, with the femora and 
tibisx, especially of the anterior pair, dilated; anterior tibia with trans- 
verse elevated lines on their outer margin; tarsi very long and slender, 
more than twice as long as tibie, with large simple claws. L. 6-7 
mm. 
Male with the posterior declivity of the elytra furnished with two 
rather indistinct teeth. 
In solid dead and just decaying wood of oak, beech and chestnut; extremely local, 
and usually regarded as rare; Windsor (Stephens); Shipley, near Horsham (Gor- 
ham) ; New Forest ; Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, locally abundant (Chapman) ; 
Scarborough (Lawson). 
