90 HETEBOMERA. \Xylopldlid<V. 



its mouth organs it is allied to Connpalpus, and still more closely to 

 Ospliya ; the Xylophilidse, however, possess one striking peculiarity 

 which separates them from Scraptia and from all the allies with which 

 they have been associated, and that is the extremely small and simple 

 penultimate joint of the tarsi, which is concealed between the strong 

 lobes of the antepenultimate joint, so that the tarsi at first sight appear 

 to be 4-4-3-jointed ; the first two segments, moreover, of the abdomen 

 are connate ; the intermediate coxae are slightly and the posterior more 

 broadly distant ; the head is suddenly constricted immediately behind 

 eyes which are large, kidney-shaped, and coarsely granulated ; the 

 antennae are filiform, rarely serrate or flabellate, long or very long, 

 inserted in a slight sinuation of the eyes ; the thorax is much narrower 

 at base than the elytra, and has the sides unmargined ; the legs are 

 rather slender, and the tibiae are furnished with small spurs ; the claws, 

 which are toothed in the Pedilina, are simple. 



(After I had sent the first part of this volume to the press, Mr. Champion kindly sent 

 me a proof of the part of the "BiologiaCentrali- Americana" containing the Xylophilidae; 

 I was much pleased to find that he also had separated the family as distinct on just the 

 same characters that I had made use of, viz. the fact that the first two segments of the 

 abdomen are connate, and the structure of the tarsi ; I have not in any point altered 

 the above remarks on the family, which I wrote about two years ago (in 188H), but 

 I have been enabled to add several particulars regarding the distribution, &c., of the 

 genus, for which I have adopted the name Xylophilus instead of Euglenes, follow- 

 ing Mr. Champion in preference to certain European authorities : Mr. Champion 

 remarks that " many authors place Xylophilus and Scraptia in the same group or 

 family ; but these genera are not closely allied, though they have the head very 

 similarly formed.'') 



XYLOPHILUS, Latreille. (Euglenes, Westwood.) 



The characters given above will serve to distinguish the genus, but 

 the peculiar shape of the maxillary and labial palpi must be noticed, as 

 they have the last joint much enlarged and widened, and almost cyathi- 

 form or cup-shaped. I cannot, however, say whether this has been found 

 to be a character universal in all the species that have been discovered ; 

 the antenna} have the second joint small ; the posterior femora are 

 flattened beneath, and the posterior tarsi have the first joint longer 

 than the rest taken together ; the genus contains at present just 

 about a hundred species, of which twenty-three occur in Europe, 

 thirty-six in Central America, sixteen in the United States, and 

 the remainder in Algeria, Japan, Ceylon, the Australian region, &c. ; the 

 Central American species have recently been described by Mr. Champion, 

 who says that no species belonging to the genus has hitherto been 

 described from America south of Texas or Florida, and that of the thirty- 

 six species discovered by him nearly two-thirds are represented by 

 single specimens only ; it is therefore probable that at least double this 

 number inhabit Central America, and that most likely they are especially 

 abundant in the northern part of South America ; Mr. Champion says, 



