330 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



CERATORHIN'A POLYPHEMUS. 



At the head of the sub-family stand the Goliathides, or Goliath Beetles, distinguished by their 

 large size, the horny processes with which the heads of the males are adorned, and the teetlu 

 bearing lower jaws, or maxillae. Their head-quarters are tropical and Southern Africa, some 



few genera being peculiar to tropical Asia. Our figures represent 

 Goliathtis druryi, from the Gold Coast, the largest of all the species, 

 which is found by the negroes feeding at the sap of trees in the 

 forest, and Ceratorhina polypliemus, an inhabitant of the wooded 

 region extending from the Gold Coast to the Gaboon and Congo, 

 and met with as far in the interior as the Muata Yanvo's domain in 

 Central Africa. More tha,n thirty species of Ceratorhina are known, 

 one of the most beautiful of which (C. peterswmci) has been taken at" 

 a village on the River Shire, near Lake Nyassa, flying in great 

 numbers about the flowers of a lofty tree, under which the native 

 palavers are held. The ground-colour in these insects is a rich 

 silky green, varied with stripes and spots of snow-white felted pile. 

 The Madagascar series of forms consist chiefly of the Schizorhina 

 group, destitute of horns, but having the front edge of the clypeus 

 more or less notched. The same group constitutes the bulk of the 

 Australian forms ; but in the north, and in New Guinea, an allied 

 group, called Lomaptera, of large size and great splendour of colour,, 

 is very numerous. The well-known European Cetonia aurata r 

 common in the south of England, may be taken as a fair represen- 

 tative of the general form of the Cetoniinae. In England it is. 

 found on various flowers, chiefly roses, hawkweeds, and other com- 

 positae, in June and July, readily taking wing, and flying, like its 

 congeners, with the wing-covers closed, instead of wide open like the 

 majority of Coleoptera, a peculiarity due chiefly to the protrusion 

 of the side-pieces of the breast, already alluded to, in front of the shoulders of the elytra. The 

 larva lives in decayed wood, and in the vegetable accumulations of Ants' nests, fabricating a sort of' 

 cocoon with agglutinated particles of the wood, in which to pass its transformations; and the duration 

 of a generation, as in the Cockchafer, is three years. The second section of the sub-family, the 

 Trichiince, are much less numerous than the Cetoniina?, but some of their species are equally hand- 

 some. One of the largest (Inca clathrata} inhabits Brazil. 



TRIBE SERRIC'ORXIA. 



The Serricornia form a numerous tribe of Beetles of elongate shape, furnished with antennae- 

 short or of moderate length, most of the joints of which are more or less prolonged on the inner side, 

 so as to give to the organ the appearance of a saw. or, when the prolongations are of greater length, of 

 a comb. The tarsi, always five-jointed, are very often dilated, each joint (except the terminal one 

 bearing the claws) being heart-shaped, or, as in many cases, furnished beneath with a membranous 

 appendage. The head is almost always retracted up to the eyes within the prothorax, and this latter 

 member is locked to the hind body by the projection of the prosteriium being received into a cavity 

 of the mesosternum. Thus, though often of great length and slenderness, the body in these insects is 

 well knit, and adapted for movements of considerable vivacity and precision. The whole are 

 vegetable feeders, but the larvae and their habits offer much diversity, which will be further detailed 

 under the head of the respective families. 



FAMILY BUPRESTID^E. 



This family is distinguished from the others of the same tribe by the fixity of the interlocking of 

 the prostermim with the mesosternum, and by the solidity of their integuments and the short serrated 

 antennae. They are remarkable for the great beauty of their colours and markings, no other family 

 containing so large a proportion of bright metallic-coloured species ; and they are further remarkable 

 for the uniformity of structure and general figure which characterises them as a group, notwithstanding 

 the enormous number of their specific forms, of which nearly 3,000 have already been described. In. 



