PARASITIC-BEETLES. Ill 



of the second division are so intimately connected by intermediate 

 grades, t])at Lacordaire and other recent authors have united a large 

 proportion of them in one large family under the name of Tenchrioriida;. 

 In accordance with our plan of classifying insects as nearly as possi- 

 ble according to their habits and the nature of their food, we will divide 

 the Heteromera into four tribes, as follows : 



A. Head as wide as the thorax, and attached to it by a visible neck. 

 Body rather soft and elytra flexible 5 anterior coxjie large, coni- 

 cal and contiguous; colors often diversified. Larvic mostly car- 

 nivorous and many of them parasitic : 



Tribe 1st (or 12th), Parasitic beetles, 

 A A. TTead without a distinct neck, narrower than the the thorax, and 

 more or less inserted in it ; body firm ; coxte never very i^rom- 

 inent; colors usually black or brown; habits never carnivorous. 

 B. Anterior coxte moderately prominent and nearly or quite contig- 

 uous; antennoe slender and filiform ; color usually brown, some- 

 times black. Larvfe live under bark of decayed trees : 



Tribe 2d (or 13th.) Baric hectics. 



B B. Anterior coxa^. small, depressed and separate ; antennre usually 

 moniliform, or sub-clavate and perfoliate. 

 C Antenuip usually more or less moniliform, and often a little 

 thickened towards the tip, and as long as the head and tho- 

 rax. Color almost always black ; habits terrestrial : 



Tribe 3d (or 14th.) Hcteromerons ground-beetles. 



<J. AntennjB usually shorter than the head and thorax, and 



strongly clavate and perfoliate ; head of males often with 



two horns. Colors brown or dark metallic, sometimes 



black with red spots. Habits fungivorous : 



Tribe 4th (or .')th,) Hcteromerous fungus-beetles. 



Tribe XII. 



PAEASITIC-BEETLES. 



Heteromera parasitica. Trachelides, Latreille. 



The name Trachclides, from a Greek word meaning a nech, was given 

 to these insects by Latreille to express their most striking character, 

 that of having the head attached to the thorax by a visible neck ; Avhere- 

 as in most beetles the head is inserted in the thorax nearly or quite to 

 the eyes. The exceptions to this rule, however, in the Coleopterous 

 order, are not very uncommon, of which the families of Telephoridai, 

 Lepturid*, and portions of the Carabidfc, are some of the most conspic- 

 uous examples. But the name was intended to contrast them more par- 

 ticularly with the other beetles of the hcteromerous section. 



