350 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Another group — the Sternoxia of Kolbe — would seem almost 

 to have an equal claim to stand, but there seems to me to be 

 much weight in Lameere's argument that theBuprestidae cannot 

 be derived from any of the other families which Kolbe includes 

 in the group. Structurally they are very different, and there is 

 also a vast difference between the larvae of the Buprestidae and 

 Elateridae — a wide gap which no intermediate forms fill up. 

 Lameere believes it to be a diphyletic group, the Elateridae and 

 Buprestidte being derived from different Dascillid ancestors. 

 In consequence he places the Sternoxia and Dascillidse * all in 

 one family series, for which he retains the name Sternoxia. 

 Kolbe, too, admits that the Sternoxia are derived from Dascil- 

 lidae, but from the non-development of coxal plates on the 

 hind legs of the Cerophytidse he argues that the Sternoxia could 

 only be derived from some Dascillid ancestor in which these 

 plates were absent — a condition met with in no existing family 

 of the group. There would be little to distinguish that Dascillid 

 ancestor from a Malacoderm. 



For other reasons I have myself been led to the opinion that 

 the ElateridsB and Cebrionidee are more nearly related to the 

 Malacoderms than they are to the Buprestidae, or even to the 

 Dascillidse, from which they are supposed to be derived. To 

 me it would seem quite as reasonable to believe that the Dascil- 

 lidae, or some at least of the families included in the group, 

 have themselves been derived from primitive Elateroid ancestors. 

 The larvffi of the Elateridse are in many ways so very like those 

 of the Malacoderms that it is difficult to say in what essential 

 respect they differ. The wing-venation of the more primitive 

 genera of Elateridae is scarcely distinguishable from that of the 

 Lampyrida3 and other Malacoderms, and certainly resembles it 

 more than it does that of any Dascillid genus which I have yet 

 examined. The Elateridse have, like the Malacoderms, only four 

 Malpighian vessels, whereas it appears that the Dascillidae, as 

 a rule, have six, though to this rule there are exceptions, which 

 will no doubt increase when the group has been more thoroughly 

 investigated. In the Dascillidae, without exception so far as I 

 know, the scutellum and base of the elytra are more or less 

 raised and sharply margined in front so as to fit closely and 

 perfectly against the base of the prothorax. This co-adaptation 

 of the parts is wanting, or at least not nearly so perfect, in the 

 Cebrionidae, the condition in this family being more like that ol 

 the Malacoderms. The coxal plates for covering the hind 

 femora are, as Kolbe points out, wanting in the Cerophytidae, 

 and are so feebly developed in some Elateridae that there is little 

 in that respect to distinguish them from the Malacoderms. The 

 genus Phenace of Pascoe, placed by him in the Melyridae, offers 



='■ lu the Dascillidae, Lameere includes the Artematopidse, Dascillidse, 

 Lichadidae, Rhipiceridae, Chelonaiiidae, Eiicinetidae, and Cyphonidse. 



