4G CLAVICORXIA. [Silpha. 



SZZiPKA, Limit*. 



This genus in its broadest sense contains a large number of species 

 which are widely distributed over the surface of the globe, but are, as at 

 present known, more characteristic of the northern and temperate zones 

 than of tropical regions ; if we exclude the Necrophorus-like genus Ne- 

 crodes, all our species may be easily known by their broad more or less 

 ovate shape, continuous outline, and small head, which is more or less 

 retracted beneath the thorax when the insect is at rest; the exotic 

 forms, however, present great degrees of variation, and, in some instances, 

 supply strong connecting links between the various sub-genera. Thomson, 

 Reitter, and others divide the genus Silpha, as it has been usually 

 regarded in our British catalogues, into several separate genera : some of 

 these are more and some less distinct, and therefore, although one or two 

 certainly, perhaps, ought to be entirely divided off, I have thought it 

 best to regard them, as has been done in other instances, as sub-genera : 

 no genus or group has suffered more from the late revival of obsolete 

 names than this ; in Herr Reitter's monograph, published in 1885, not a 

 single genus of the tribe Silphina goes by the name that it bore in the 

 catalogue of Heyden, Reitter, and Weise, published in 1883, with the 

 exception of Pterolema, which is not represented in our fauna ; and, 

 what is worse, although Silpha survives, yet it is applied to Necrophorus ; 

 it is true that some, at all events, of the changes of nomenclature appear 

 to be historically correct, as far as the law of priority goes, but in many 

 instances the descriptions of the old authors of the last century are so 

 meagre, that it is almost impossible to tell what their type really was ; 

 and, at any rate, when the names Silpha and Necrophorus have been in 

 use with their present connotation for upwards of ninety years (v. 

 Fabricius, Syst. El. I. 333 and 336), it certainly seems a "" reductio ad 

 absurdum " of the present rage for reviving old names, to thus mix them 

 up and confuse them past all recognition ; the same remarks will apply 

 to Necrodes, Oiceoptoma, and Phosplmga, which have been in use for 

 nearly sixty years, and to many other genera in other groups and families. 



The larvae of several species of Silplm are well known, and in some cases they 

 have proved very injurious to crops ; this is especially the case with the larva of 

 SilpAa opaca, which at times does very great damage to beet and mangold-wurzel ; 

 the larva, like the generality of the Silpha larva*, is shaped much like a wood-louse, 

 and is black and rather shining, with the thoracic segments rounded or obtusely 

 angled at base and the abdominal segments with the posterior angles rather sharp 

 and produced ; the last segment bears two sharp spinose cerci ; when full-fed these 

 larvae bury themselves three or four inches in the earth and emerge as perfect beetles 

 at the end of two or three weeks (See Curtis, "Farm Insects," p. 391). If it can bo 

 proved thnt the eggs of the beetle are laid originally in putrefying matter, Miss 

 Ormerod's suggestions (" Manual of Injurious Insects," p. 13) that artificial manure 

 should be used where attacks arc frequent, or that the ordinary farm -yard manure 

 should be applied in the autumn instead of in the spring, might be productive of very 

 Kood results ; it appears to me, however, that this is by no means a certain fact, for 

 i have found the larva 1 of a species of Silpha which I believe to be S. opaca or a 



