COLEOPTERA. Ji 



which the eyea are remote from each other, and the thorax is almost 

 orbicular and transversal, form the genus 



Vyrochroa, pi- 02)6 r I 1/ so called*. 



In the third tribe, that of the Mordellonai;, so far as respects the 

 form of the joints of the tarsi and of their hooks, and of that of the 

 antennse and palpi, we find no common and constant character. 

 These Insects, however, are easily distinguished from other Hetero- 

 mera of the same family, by the general conformation of their body, 

 which is elevated and arcuated ; the head is low, the thorax trape- 

 zoidal or semicircular, and the elytra are very short or narrowed, and 

 terminate in a point, like the abdomen. Several of these Insects 

 approach the Pyrochroides in their antennae ; others, by their max- 

 illse, the hooks of their tarsi and parasitical habits, approximate to 

 Nemognathus and Sitaris, subgenera of the last tribe of this family ; 

 but they are removed both from the former and the latter by their 

 extreme agility and the firm and solid nature of their teguments. 



They form the genus 



MoilDELLA, Ll7l. 



In some, the palpi are almost of equal thickness throughout. The 

 antennae of the males are strongly pectinated, or flabelliform. The 

 extremity of the mandibles is unemarginated. The joints of the tarsi 

 are always entire, and the hooks of the last one are dentated or bifid. 

 The middle of the posterior margin of the thorax is always strongly 

 prolonged backwards, and simulates a scutellum. The eyes are not 

 emarginated. The larvae of some of these Insects — Ripiphori — inha- 

 bit the nests of certain Wasps. 



RipiPHORUs, Bosc. Fab. 



Their wings are extended, reaching beyond the elytra, which are 

 the length of the abdomen ; the hooks of the tarsi are bifid ; the an- 

 tennae, inserted near the inner edge of the eyes, are pectinated on 

 both sides in the males, serrated, or with but a single range of short 

 teeth in the females. The terminal lobe of the maxillae is very long, 

 linear, and salient, and the ligula equally elongated and strongly bifid. 



Certain naturalists have foimd several living specimens of the 

 Bipiphor us paradoxus in the nests of the Common Wasp, which led 

 to tlie opinion, that they had lived there in their larvae state. Ac- 

 cording to an observation of M. Farines, however, communicated to 

 Count Dejean— Ann. des Sc. Nat., VIII, 244 — the larva of the R. 



the collection of M. Bosc, that closely approximates to the Pyrochroa flahtUnta, Fab. 

 M. Fischer has made the same generic section, under the denomination of Pogono- 

 cerus, from a second species — thoracicus — discovered in southern Russia. The figure 

 of it, given by him in the Mem. of the Nat. of Mosc, is reproduced in the first 

 volume of his Entomog. Imp. Russ. 



* See Geoffroy, De Geer, Fabricius, Latreille, Schoenherr, &c. 



