of Buprestidee and Elateride. 199 
account of that of Elateride, only mentioning such details of 
the anatomical structure of Buprestidz as will serve to clear up 
the differences between the two families. The statements I have 
to offer with regard to Elateride are the results partly of my 
own investigations of the anatomy of the insects, partly of a 
considerable number of dissections made by Dr. Fr. Meinert. 
The trachez are without vesicles; the spiral ribs of the in- 
ternal membrane of the larger trunks in the head and thorax 
are generally furnished with fine spines. The fat 1s not present in 
great quantity, though the less active species (as Agriotes lineatus, 
obscurus, sputator) have more of it; it is often of a yellowish 
colour, on account of the numerous yellow cytoblasts contained 
in the fat-cells. 
True salivary glands are wanting, the cells secreting the saliva 
being not more numerous than can be accommodated in the 
walls of the pharynx, on either side of which a series of orifices 
give outlet to the ducts from these large and round glandular 
cells. 
The digestive tube is of very simple construction, and so short 
that it never much exceeds the length of the animal, often only 
by a sixth or an eighth, more rarely by one-third. The pharynx 
is flat, strongly narrowed behind. The cesophagus 1s very short, 
gradually widened into the very small craw, which reaches a 
shorter or longer way into the prothorax. The muscular mem- 
brane of the cesophagus and the craw is rather weak ; the inner 
membrane is covered with fine stiff hairs, which are directed 
forwards, more or less conspicuously arranged in longitudinal 
rows. The gizzard is very small, and in reality but little more 
than a pylorus formed by the narrowing of the craw, whereby 
the hair spines are made to stand closer together, so as to forin 
a reversed wheel. 
The stomach is cylindrical, straight, and reaches more or less 
far into the abdominal cavity ; in front it is club-formed, dis- 
tended, and the anterior end often protrudes so much that it 
receives the gizzard in a kind of dip. The muscular membrane 
of the stomach has in some cases equally well-developed longi- 
tudinal and transverse muscles, forming a net of quadrangular 
meshes, through which the layer of glandular cells peculiar to 
the stomach protrudes like warts; but in other cases the trans- 
verse muscles are weak, whilst the longitudinal ones are very 
powerful and strongly striated (as in Lacon murinus, Diacanthus 
eneus), through the intervals of which the cellular stratum pro- 
trudes as parallel longitudinal rows of small semiglobular ceca. 
The intestine is in the majority of cases straight, smooth, with- 
out prominent longitudinal bands or intestinal warts, mostly 
with unstriped transverse muscles, and without marked distinc- 
