196 Prof. J. C. Schiddte on the Classification 
ment depends partly on the nutritive side of the animal’s life, 
partly on the requirements of propagation ; but the latter pre- 
dominate. The mandibles present the appearance of short, 
exceedingly strong, quadrangular, pointed, hollow chisels, with 
sharp or somewhat serrated edges, with a deep and roomy 
socket above, and a very prominent globular condyle be- 
low, which strongly reminds us of the head of the humax 
femur. Their muscles are so large as to necessitate a very large 
and round skull. The mandibles are principally in the service 
of the propagation of the species, since it is by their means 
that the beetle, after its transformation, works its way out of the 
timber; nor is it improbable that they are employed in making 
preparations for the deposition of the eggs, viz. by facilitating 
the application of the ovipositor to suitable parts of the bark. 
They are largest m those Buprestidze which, as larvee, burrow 
deepest, and the food of the beetles consists in that case of 
leaves and buds*. In the group of Anthaxini, on the contrary, 
they are somewhat less developed; they are flatter, their extre- 
mities laciniated, and their inner margin less deeply excavated : 
in this case the beetle feeds upon pollen, and possesses peculiar 
bag-shaped extensions on the cesophagus for the preliminary 
collection and softening of this kind of food. The maxillz are 
broad and powerful, their lobes small, coriaceous, covered with 
very stiff, short hairs—the outer one broader, but the inner one 
more pointed, than 1n the leaf-eaters. The mentum affords, by 
its clumsy shape and considerable thickness, a good support 
from below for the play of the mandibles and the maxille, The 
lingua is without stipes, small, thick, coriaceous, undivided, 
peed in the same way as the fanes of the eats. the labial 
palpi are short, with much-reduced basal joints, but with free pro- 
trusible stipites. The palparium in both pairs of palpi is large 
(the terminal joint truncate) in those Buprestidee which have to 
choose timber for their young ; but it is small (the terminal joint 
obovate) in those which place ‘their eggs in thin branches, stems, 
and parenchyma. 
The great variety of forms amongst Hlateride is expressed 
also in the structure of the mouth. Of this we meet with two 
types, one being principally calculated to serve the nutritive 
life, the other to serve the propagation of the species. 
* According to information from Tranquebar, the large Sternocera 
chrysis swarms round certain trees, eating their Jeaves, as the cockchafers 
with us. In some years it occurs in great numbers. Once it happened 
that a box received from that locality contained nothing but hundreds of 
bellies of this Buprestid. The native who had been sent out collecting had 
understood the matter in his own way, and taken off the shiny green shields, 
which his countrywomen use for ornaments. 
