54 INSECTA. 



Insects are winged, their body is most commonly square, their thorax 

 trapezoidal or semicircular, and concealing or receiving the head. 

 The antennae, usually inserted under a marginal projection of the 

 sides of the head, are short, more or less perfoliate or granose, en- 

 large insensibly, or terminate in a club. The legs are only adapted 

 for walking, and all the joints of the tarsi are entire, and terminated 

 by single hooks ; the anterior tibise are frequently broad and triangu- 

 lar. Several males have the head furnished with horns. Most of 

 them inhabit the fungi on trees, or under the bark ; some live on the 

 ground, under stones. 



M. Leon Dufour has observed in certain subgenera of this family, 

 such as Hypophlaeus, Diaperis proper, Eledona or Boletophagus, an 

 excrementitious apparatus, and in the second salivary vessels. The 

 chylific ventricle of these Heteromera is bristled with little piliform 

 papillae. These characters, and the conformation of the organs of 

 generation, point out the connexion between this and the preceding 

 family *. 



In some, the head is completely exposed, and never entirely re- 

 ceived into a deep notch in the anterior of the thorax. This last 

 is sometimes trapezoidal or square, and at others almost cylindrical ; 

 its sides, as well as those of the elytra, do not extend remarkably 

 beyond the body. 



This division will form the tribe of the Diaperiales, the type of 

 which is the genus 



Diaperis. 



Sometimes the antennae are generally stout, almost straight, and 

 mostly perfoliate, or terminated abruptly by a thick club. The body 

 is smooth, or the elytra are lightly striated. The sides of tlie tho- 

 rax have but a slight border, and are neither depressed nor dentated ; 

 there is no remarkable separation nor hiatus between its posterior 

 angles and the base of the elytra. The two anterior legs are trian- 

 gular, and dilated exteriorly at the extremity, in a great number. 



Here the antennae enlarge insensibly, or at least are not abruptly 

 terminated by an oval or ovoid club, of which most of the joints are 

 larger than the preceding ones. 



In some, and the greater number, the body is oval or ovoid, some- 

 times even hemispherical, Avith the thorax either nearly square or 

 trapezoidal, most frequently transversal, but never long and narrow. 

 Phaleria, Lat. — Uloma, Phaleria, Dej. 



The last joint of the maxillary palpi larger and securiform, or like 



* It is the same with the following one. The transition from Tenebrio to Phale- 

 ria and Helops, is almost insensible, and consequently the characters of these fami- 

 lies, in some cases, are ambiguous. 



