92 HETEROMEIM. 



X. oculatus, Gyll. (pygtnte.'us, Muls., nee De G.). Head and 

 thorax fuscous black, the latter sometimes brownish, elytra fusco-tes- 

 taceous ; pubescence pale, fine and rather thin ; punctuation close, more 

 distinct on elytra than on thorax ; head together with eyes broader 

 than front of thorax ; eyes distinctly, but not deeply, emarginate ; 

 thorax transverse, impressed on either side at base with a transverse, 

 somewhat curved furrow ; elytra subparallel, rather plainly and rugosely, 

 but very closely, sculptured ; antenna and legs ferruginous or reddish- 

 testaceous. L. l|-2 mm. 



Male with the antennae very long, longer than the whole body, with 

 the third joint twice as long as second ; the anterior tibiae are terminated 

 by a short hooked spine, and the posterior femora are somewhat 

 thickened. 



Female with the antennae short, scarcely longer than half the body, 

 with the third joint a little longer than second ; tibiae and femora simple. 



In decaying white-thorn, oak, willow, &c. ; very local and, as a rule, rare ; Lee 

 (Douglas and Scott) ; Forest Hill; Woking ; Claygate, Esher, Horsell, Birch Wood 

 and Purley (Power) ; Birch Wood (S. Stevens) ; Windsor and Suffolk (Stephens) ; 

 Devon ; Sherwood Forest ; Dunham Park, Manchester (Chappell). 



IVIELOIDJE (Cantharidce). 



This family contains some of the most interesting and at the same 

 time we may say the most useful of the Coleoptera ; there is nothing 

 hardly, more strange to be found in the history of insects than the 

 transformations of Meloe and Sitaris, and medicine is much indebted to 

 the genera Lytta (Cantharis) and Myldbris for their vesicatorial or 

 blistering qualities, for which even in these days no effectual substitute 

 appears yet to have been discovered ; the family is rather a large one, 

 containing upwards of fifty genera and a thousand species, which are 

 very widely distributed throughout the world, from Siberia to the Cape 

 of Good Hope, India, Chili and Peru, and the Australian region ; the 

 majority of species, however, occur in the tropics or the adjacent 

 countries ; some of the genera are very extensive in point of numbers, 

 Myldbris and Lytta {Cantharis} each containing between two and three 

 hundred species ; there has been considerable confusion caused as to the 

 nomenclature of the family by the fact that Linnaeus applied the term 

 Cantharis to Telepliorus, although the name had been used for the 

 blister beetle for a long time previously in medicine ; several modern 

 authors, moreover, apply the name Myldbris to JBruchus, and substitute 

 Zonabris for Myldbris; it is perhaps the best course to adopt the term 

 Melo'idse for the family instead of Cantharidse, and to drop the term 

 Cantharis altogether, but the change of name as regards Mylabris cannot 

 without great difficulty and confusion be admitted. The members of 

 the family Meloida3 differ considerably from one another in shape, colour, 

 and general appearance ; the following are the chief characters which 

 they possess in common : Head vertical, strongly and suddenly 



