THE HETEROMEBA. 163 



confused with the sides, but is distinctly separated by 

 a margin. 



They have no neck to the head, which is bent down 

 and sometimes not visible from above, though the eyes 

 are never encroached upon by the thorax; and the 

 clypeus is never distinctly separated by a suture from 

 the rest of the head. 



They are somewhat elongate, narrow, usually hard, 

 not clothed with much pubescence, and more or less 

 convex. 



In Orchesia (0. uhdulata, Plate X, Fig. 4; found in 

 whitethorn flowers in the New Forest) the antennae are 

 rather thickened at the apex, the spurs to the tibiae are 

 very long ; the anterior coxae are not approximated ; and 

 the penultimate joint of the hind tarsi is very long and 

 entire, the two latter characters being also shared by 

 Hallomenus. The species of both of these genera are 

 bred from the fungoid matter growing on old wood, and 

 from boleti, in which their smooth fleshy larvae are found. 

 Orchesia, wherein the hinder coxae are large, flat, square, 

 and transverse, and the spurs to the hinder tibiae very 

 long and pectinated beneath, possesses the power of 

 skipping about in a ludicrous manner. 



With the exception of Melandrya caraboides, a spe- 

 cies very variable in size (as in most wood-feeders), flat, 

 hard, blue-black, shining, with the elytra rather widened 

 behind, none of this family can be considered com- 

 mon, though many of them occur in some numbers 

 when they are met with. M. caraboides lives in its 

 earlier stages in old willow stumps ; and the perfect in- 

 sect may be seen with its head projecting from the mouth 

 of the burrow made by the larva, into which it rapidly 

 backs on an attempt being made to capture it. It flies 



M 2 



