S14> NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



extending considerably beyond the abdomen : their an- 

 tennae are dilated into an abrupt, compressed, three- 

 jointed clava ; and in some the inside of the anterior 

 tibia of the male has, towards its apex, a long decumbent 

 spine. Other cognate genera have not the sides of the 

 elytra enlarged. 



(279-) Our next sub-family, the Chrysomelidce, are 

 convex insects, generally ovate : they differ from our 

 second section of the preceding, in having four obvious 

 joints to the tarsi ; antenna not clavate ; and their 

 larvae, at least those of the type, are naked, and feed 

 upon the leaves, of plants, leaving nothing but the 

 fibrous skeleton. The Galerucidce, which contain also 

 Haltica, — but we think very incorrectly, considering the 

 different structure and habits both of larva and imago, 

 — are a component portion of the present family : the 

 latter are remarkable for the great enlargement of their 

 posterior legs, which gives them the power of leaping ; 

 and they are the only insects, throughout the phyto- 

 phagous division of the Coleoptera, that possess this 

 power. Their larvae and themselves are exceedingly 

 destructive to plants ; and our farmers have frequent 

 occasion to execrate their existence, on account of their 

 spoliation of turnip crops, — one of these little skipping 

 insects being the well-known and formidable turnip 

 fly ; their larvae feed between the membrane of leaves, 

 upon the parenchyma. Tritoma and Triplax, which 

 British entomologists have usually associated with the 

 Engid(e, evidently come into this group somewhere ad- 

 jacent to ChrysomeJa : they are fungi vorous insects ; 

 and some of the exotic species are very conspicuous for 

 size. The types of the sub-family Galeruca are formed 

 like the preceding, but they do not jump, and occur 

 chiefly in humid situations. 



(280.) Our next family, the ClythridcB, are all 

 insects of a heavy obtuse form ; sometimes, as in 

 Chlamys, of a rough and very unequal surface, more 

 resembling a cluster of irregular crystals than an insect : 

 it is exclusively American, Clythra itself is more 



