454 



Necrophorus, Fab. — Silpha, Lin. — Dermestes, Geoff. 



The antennae, hardly longer than the head, terminate abruptly in 

 an almost globular club of four joints, the first of which is long, and 

 the second much shorter than the third. The body nearly forms a 

 parallelopiped ; the thorax is Avidcst anteriorly ; all the tibiae are 

 strong, widened at the extremity and terminated by stout spurs; the 

 elytra are truncated at right angles. The maxillae are destitute of a 

 horny unguiculus. 



Their instinctive habit of burying the bodies of Moles, Mice, and 

 other small quadrupeds, have procured for them the names of enter- 

 reurs and porte-morts. When they find a dead animal of the above 

 description, they work under it and excavate a hole of sufficient di- 

 mensions to contain the body, Avhich they gradually drag into it; in 

 this body they deposit their ova, and thus the larvae find their food in 

 the very nidus in which they are hatched. They are long, and of a 

 greyish white colour; the anterior segments are covered superiorly 

 with a small, fulvous-broAvn, squamous plate, and the posterior with 

 little elevated points, They are furnished with six feet and strong 

 mandibles. When about to pass into the state of a chrysalis, they 

 penetrate deeply into the earth, where they construct a cell, which 

 they line with a viscid substance. 



These Insects, as well as many others that inhabit dead animal 

 bodies, diffuse a strong odour resembling musk. Their habits have 

 lately attracted the attention of Mole-catchers, and in the work enti- 

 tled L'Art du Taiipier, we find certain facts relative to this subject 

 which had escaped the observations of naturalists. The sense of 

 smell must be excessively acute in these Insects, for but a short time 

 elapses after a Mole has been killed, when Nccrophori are seen cir- 

 cling about it, although they were previously sought for in vain in 

 the same locality. 



The digestive canal of tlie Necrophori and Silphae is at least thrice 

 the length of the body. The oesophagus is very short and followed 

 by an ellipsoidal gizzard, whose lining tunic is sHghtly scabrous and 

 bristled, at least in several species, with pointed setae variously di- 

 rected, but arranged in eight longitudinal bands separated by smooth 

 intervals. The intestinal canal is very long, particularly in the Ne- 

 crophori and Necrcdes. Its surface, in the latter, as Avell as in the 

 Silphae, is thickly studded with salient and granular points. It opens, 

 either laterally or directly, into a smooth enlargement, which, ac- 

 cording to Dufovir — Ann. des Sc. Nat., Octob. 1824 — may be com- 

 pared to a caecum. To the side is appended a pediculated oval or 

 oblong bursa, which constitutes a part of the excrementitious appa- 

 ratus. There are four biliary vessels, slender, extremely long and 

 very flexuous, each of which is separately inserted round the extre- 

 mity of the chylific ventricle. — Dufour, lb., July, 1825. From the 

 figure of the alimentary canal of the Necrophorus ve'^pillo, given by 

 Randohr, it appears that the great intestine, instead of being covered 

 with granular papillae, is furnished with transverse muscular fillets, 

 forming annular plicae, 



