THE EROTYLIDES. 



351 



ments and bright colours, in which red, yellow, and black hues prevail, forming often elegant 

 patterns on the wing-covers. The larvae are elongated, of leathery texture, slightly narrowed at the 

 two extremities, the head furnished with three-jointed antennae and ocelli on each side, and the thorax 

 with three pairs of feet of normal development. In their structure they point to a relationship with 

 the family Coccinellidte. The transformations of the larger exotic species are up to the present 

 unrecorded ; but the Erotylus hopei, which the present writer had the opportunity of observing in 

 South America, seems to differ a little from the European species (genus Triplax), in being studded with 

 longish spines, and the anal segment furnished with a pair of very long setiform appendages. The 

 prothoracic segment is larger than the others, and nearly semicircular. These larvae were found 

 abundantly on hard boleti on an old stump, and underwent their transformations attached by the tail 

 to leaves, precisely like the Lady-birds (Coccinellae). The tribe is generally considered as a natural 

 family, and is divided into three sub-families : Langtiriince (extremely narrow and elongate forms, with 

 broadly dilated tarsi, of which there are no European species), HelotincK (handsomely sculptured and 

 metallic species, inhabiting tropical Asia and Africa), and the typical group J&rotylince, comprising the 

 great bulk of the species, and distributed over all temperate and tropical regions. The Erotylinae of the 

 Old World are of elongated oblong form, but those of America are in great part dilated, ovate, or with 

 elytra expanded and raised into huge dromedary-like bosses. 



SECTION TEIMERA. 



In this section the tarsi have only three true joints, the joint which is apparently the analogue of 

 the third in the Paiitarnera being rudimentary at the base of the claw-joint, just as the fourth 



COCCINELLA SEPTEMl'UNCTATA (SEVEN- SPOTTED LADY-BIKD). 



