56 OUTLINES OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



by their smaller size, their round blue-black bodies, long front legs and 

 very short swimming legs. The eyes are bilobed, giving them the ap- 

 pearance of two on each side. They usually appear in groups on the 

 surface of the water, sporting and circling about in great apparent en- 

 joyment. The larvae look like myriapods, having a pair of long, spiny- 

 processes on each abdominal segment. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

 Order, COLEOPTERA. Tribes, CLAVICORNIA and SERRICORNIA* 



CLUB HORNED AND SAW-HORNED BEETLES. 



[Fig 23.] 



Flat-headed Apple tree borer (Chrysobolbris femorata), with laiva 

 rafter Riley.) 



In the first of these Tribes we find a large number of quite dis- 

 tinct families and genera of beetles in which the principal point of 

 agreement is found in the antenna, which in most of the species are 

 " clubbed," or rather thick and gradually and slightly enlarged toward 

 the tip. But even in this character there is some variation Ips fa si at a 

 and the species of Nitidula, for example, having antennae that are dis- 

 tinctly knobbed at the end. 



Among the Clavicorn beetles the number of joints of the feet 

 ranges from one to five, most species having the same number in the 

 hind tarsi as in the others. 



The representative Families of this subdivision of the Order are 

 the Burying beetles (SILPHIDJE), the Kove beetles (STAPHYLINID.E), 

 the Lady-bird beetles (OOCCINELLID^), and the Museum pests and 

 Carpet beetles (DERMESTID^E). 



The Burying beetles or Sexton beetles are so called from their habit 

 of first burying the dead bodies of other insects, birds and small ani- 

 mals upon which their larvae feed, before placing their eggs upon them ; 

 and one is sometimes astonished upon coming across such small car- 



