62 THE ORDER OF COLEOPTERA. 



Family XIII. CRYPTOPHAGID^E. 



This family name means essentially the same as the preceding one, 

 and implies that the insects which compose it feed upon Cryptogamous 

 plants, which include the mushrooms and fungi. They are very small 

 insects, usually less than one-tenth of an inch in length, of a light-yel- 

 lowisli brown color, and usually having a silken lustre, produced by a 

 microscopically fine pubescence. They are distinguished from the 

 Mycetophagidie by their usually smaller size, their finer pubescence, 

 the absence of spots, and in the typical and most numerous genus by 

 little saw-like teeth along the sides of the thorax. The C. cellaris and 

 C. crinitus are often found in cellars. 



Upwards of thirty N. A. species have been described. 



Family XIV. BYRRHID^. 



The Byrrhidai are distinguished from all other pentamerous clavicorns 



by their short and very strongly arched or convex bodies, taken in con- 



[Fig. 25.) nection with the hairs or minute scales by which the surface 



of their bodies is more or less clothed and ornamented. The 



family includes moderately large and very small species 



— some of the species of the typical genus Byrrhus* being from 



one-quarter to one-half of an inch in length. All the other 



beetles of this tribe, which have very strongly convex or sub- 



BYRRniis:— 1 globular bodies, are distinguished from the Byrrhidic by being 



beetle; 2, hinil '^ i » .; »; o 



leg. partially small or vcry small insects, with a shining or polished surface. 



lolded up and '' ' ox 



sppnfiom The Byrrhidiie are further distinguished by the extreme con- 



■wuhiii— alter '' » •/ 



westwood. tractility of their members — the joints of their legs being ca- 

 pable of being shut so closely upon each other and upon the body, that 

 they are scarcely distinguishable, except upon close inspection. This, 

 together with their sub-globular form, suggested toLinmeus the specific 

 name oi jyilula, for a European species, from its resemblance to a i^ill or 

 little ball of inanimate matter. These insects are found upon the ground, 

 often in sandy situations, also at the roots of trees and grass. Some 

 species are known to feed upon the mosses. 

 Thirty-two N. A. species are known. 



* This nauio, which is supposed to have been derived from the Greek bursa — a hide, from some fan- 

 cied resemblance in texture, was originally given to these insects by Linnieus, in the twelftli edition 

 of the Systema Naturae, in 1766. Mr. Crotch, in his recent Check List of N. A. Coleoptera, suppresses 

 this name and adopts the name of Cistela, previously given to this genus hy Geolfroy, but since ap- 

 plied to a genus of heteromerous beetles. But we prefer to retain the name given by Liunieus, and 

 established by universal usage for more than a century. 



