150 BRITISH BEETLES. 



tetramerous Scolytidae and Curculionidte : it appears to 

 make straight burrows in the solid wood of felled oaks. 



Our common Lyctus canaliculatus, which has a de- 

 pression on the prothorax, is found on fresh oak palings. 



The CIOID.E (described by M. Mellie in the French 

 ' Annales/ 1848, p. 205, et seq.) have four joints to the 

 tarsi, of which the three first are not so long as the 

 apical. Their head is more or less retractile within the 

 thorax, the front of which often projects; the antennae 

 vary from eight to ten joints in the British genera, but 

 have always a three-jointed club ; the organs of the 

 mouth are but little developed, the mandibles only being 

 robust, and the labrum distinct ; there are no apical 

 spurs to the tibiae; and the first joint of the abdomen is 

 longer than any of the others. 



They are all small, cylindrical, feebly built insects; 

 varying from yellow to dark brown in colour ; generally 

 shining, but sometimes clothed with a very short silky 

 down, which imparts a somewhat metallic reflection. 

 Their punctuation is almost always irregular on the 

 elytra ; and they occur gregariously in boleti, and other 

 fungi, especially when the latter are attached to trees. 

 The males are known either by the larger size of their 

 mandibles, or by the presence of certain little horn-like 

 tubercles on the head or anterior margin of the pro- 

 thorax. 



Their elongate, cylindrical, curved, fleshy larvae are 

 slightly hairy, with two recurved hooks at the apex on 

 the upper side, and appear to resemble those of Crypto- 

 phayus ; and the pupa has two slight spines at its lower 

 extremity. 



In Rhopalodontus and Cis the antennae have ten joints; 

 the former having the tibiae dilated at their outer ex- 



