80 SERRICORNIA. [EldteriJte. 



increased since that time; thirty-three genera and about three hundred 

 and eighty species occur in Europe, of which seventeen genera, containing 

 sixty-one species, are found in Britain; the family, therefore, is con- 

 siderably better represented by indigenous species than is the case with 

 the Buprestidse. 



The chief characteristic of the family, and that from which it derives 

 its name (the word " Elater " being the Greek for a " driver " or 

 "jumper"), is the power that its members possess of springing into the 

 air when placed on their back; this is effected by depressing the head 

 backwards so as to form a slight arch, a movement which brings the 

 strong prosternal process to the anterior part of the mesosternal cavity; 

 the muscles are then suddenly relaxed, and the spine descends suddenly 

 into the cavity ; by the force of this sudden movement upon the 

 slightly arched body the base of the elytra is caused to strike the sup- 

 porting surface with some violence, and the whole body is forced 

 upwards ; this property is necessarily coexistent with a loose articula- 

 tion between the pro- and mesothorax, which, as pointed out by Dr. 

 Horn and others, is a remarkable character in the majority of the genera 

 of the family. 



This power of leaping, as above shown, is also possessed by several 

 of the Eucnemidaa, and it is on account of this, to a great extent, that 

 many authors include them with the Elateridse. 



The following are some of the chief characters that distinguish the 

 family : Head usually more or less sunk in thorax, but occasionally 

 free with the eyes prominent; eyes, as a rule, not prominent, round ; 

 antennae pectinate, serrate, or somewhat filiform, inserted low down on 

 the forehead, distant at base, sometimes received in grooves ; mandibles 

 bifid at apex, maxillae with two lobes, the outer one very small, 

 maxillary palpi with the last joint, as a rule, scuriform; prothorax 

 loosely articulated with mesothorax, prosternum produced into a process 

 behind which is received in an ' excavation in the middle of the meso- 

 sternum; anterior coxal cavities open behind; mesosternum short, meta- 

 sternum usually long ; elytra almost always covering the abdomen (very 

 rarely abbreviated in the female), scutellum visible; abdomen composed 

 of five segments ; legs moderately long or short, usually slender, tarsi 

 5-jointed either simple or, rarely, lobed, claws simple, toothed or 

 pectinate. 



The species as a rule are sombre-coloured, and in this respect differ 

 from the Buprestidse; a few, however (such as Elater sanguineus and 

 its allies, Corymbites ceneus, &c.), are conspicuous; some of the exotic 

 species attain to a very considerable size; the members of the family 

 that are best known to the ordinary student of Natural History are the 

 so-called. " fire-Hies," which are really beetles belonging to the genus 

 Pyrophorus ; the type species P. noctilncus, L., is upwards of an inch 

 long, of an obscure brown colour, with an oval spot of a dull yellow 

 colour near each posterior angle of the thorax; with regard to this 



