3104 THE JOINTED ANIMALS 



length, of a dirty yellowish color, and covered with a yellow down. Though found 

 on flowers of many different kinds, it is especially common on raspberry blos- 

 soms, and the cylindrical brownish larvae sometimes do much damage to the flowers 

 and fruit. 



The Dermestidce have a special interest, owing to the destructive habits of many 

 of the species. The beetles themselves are small in size, oblong or oval in shape, 

 sometimes nearly round, and usually clothed with fine closely lying hairs or scales, 

 which frequently give rise to grayish or yellowish spots or bands on the elytra. 

 The front of the head, except in the genus Dermestes, bears a single ocellus; the short 

 antennae, consisting usually of eleven joints, are clubbed at the end; the abdomen is 

 entirely covered over above by the elytra; and the tarsi are always five jointed. 

 While certain species are met with only on flowers, the majority live in dried ani- 

 mal matter furs, skins, and the like, as well as articles of food, such as bacon and 

 cheese. The perfect insects do comparatively little damage, the real depredators 

 being the larvae, including those of many species which in the adult state frequent 

 flowers. The larvae are little hairy creatures of a dark color, looking like small 

 caterpillars, with the hairs sticking out straight and arranged more or less in tufts 

 or bundles. The larvas of Anthrenus musceorum, the so-called museum beetle, have 

 to be carefully guarded against in museums, as they are very destructive to zoolog- 

 ical collections and more especially to those of dried insects. Attagenus pellio is an- 

 other very common species of this family, usually found in houses, and well known 

 on account of the ravages of its larva in natural history collections, furs, hair- 

 stuffed couches, etc. The larva is of a brown or red-brown color above, and covered 

 with long hairs pointing backward; it is broader in front and tapers toward the 

 hinder end, where it carries a tail tuft of very long hairs. 



In the ffydrophtlida the antennas are short and composed of from six to nine 

 joints, of which the first is relatively long, and the last three or so thickened in the 

 form of a club; the mentum is a large shield-like plate without a notch in front; the 

 lobes of the maxillae are not toothed, and the palpi are long and slender, frequently 

 much longer and more conspicuous than the antennae. These characteristics afford 

 a ready means of distinguishing these herbivorous water beetles from the carnivo- 

 rous water beetles, to which in general shape many of them bear a close resemblance. 

 The great length of the maxillary palpi has given rise to the name Palpicornes by 

 which the family was formerly known. In the perfect state, all the members of the 

 family feed upon vegetable matter; but it is only those of the subfamily Hydro- 

 philince of which the great water beetle, Hydrophilus piceus, may be taken as the 

 type that are truly aquatic in their habits; the second subfamily, the Spharidiiruz , 

 though including certain marsh-frequenting species, is composed mainly of land in- 

 sects which are found chiefly in vegetable refuse or in the droppings of herbivorous 

 mammals. Of the Hydrophilince some are found in stagnant, others in running water, 

 but they are nearly all poor swimmers, while a large number progress by simply 

 crawling along the surface film upside down; in their slow movements they present 

 a marked contrast to the active predatory Dytiscidce. 



Having touched upon the principal families of the Clavicorn series, we pass to 

 the Pectinicornia, a small tribe containing only two families, one of which has no 



