HETEROMEROUS BARK-BEETLES. 119 



Family L. PYTHID^. 

 Another small family containing less than a dozen North American 

 species, the most remarkable of which belong to the genus Salpingus, 

 which difiers from all other Coleoptera except the Curculionidte, in hav- 

 ing the head prolonged in front in the form of a snout, sometimes of 

 considerable length. The two leading genera are Pytho, Latr., and 

 Salpingus J Illiger. 



Family LI. CISTELID^. 



This is a family of considerable extent, and some of the species are 



amongst our most common insects. They are smooth, oval beetles, of 



[Pig. 55.] moderate or rather small size, and are generally 



clothed with minute hairs, which give a silkeu gloss 



to the surface. Their most distinctive character is 



the i)ectinate or comb-toothed claws at the end of the 



tarsi. This, like most other minute characters, can 



be best seen by holding the insect up against the 



CisTEi.A:— 1, beetle; 2, light of a wiudow and examining it through a lens. 



tarsus ; 3, tarsal claw ~ 



—after westwood. This character is very rare in the Coleoptera, and 

 therefore quite distinctive where it occurs. We have already seen it 

 to exist in the genus LeMa and a few other Carabidas, and a modifica- 

 tion of it occurs in the families Meloidte and MordellidiB. 



Our most common species of Oistelidte are plain, brownish beetles 

 without spots. Thirty-five species have been described, most of which 

 are contained in the genera Cistela* and AUecula of Fabricius; the 

 former having merely simple tarsi and the latter having the anterior 

 tarsi somewhat dilated, and all of them with the penultimate joint 

 bilobed. 



Family LII. MELANDRYIDiE. 

 rjiff. r,fij_^ rpjjg insects of this family were called Serropalpi 



by Latreille, to express their most remarkable char- 

 acter : that of having the joints of the maxillary 

 palpi — which are usually long and pendulous— more 

 or less enlarged in the form of saw-teeth, the last 

 MKLANDR^ :-i, beetle; jolut being the largest, and usually hatchet-shaped. 

 8iiow?i!."ifrge'sizr'ami It is a family of moderate extent, containing forty- 

 Ibt^dSloiisofflveN. A. species. They never much exceed half 

 the maxillary paipi-af- ■ r^ j^ lengfth, and somc are less than half that 



ter Westwood. "^' x^-^m^ o 7 



* This name— derived from the Greek Hste—a, chest, appears to have been given originaUy by Geof- 

 fioy to the insects of the genus Byrrhus, Linn., to the short and thick bodies of which it was not in- 

 applicable. But Linnaius having given the name Byrrhus to this genus, the name Cistela was trans- 

 ferred by Fabricius to the present group of heteromerous beetles, where it has now become established 

 by general acceptance and long usage. 



