OF THE ORDER COLEOPTERA. 269 



into the reservoir. The second organ, or the conservatory, 

 which is also the reservoir, presents a spherical body of the 

 bulk of a turnip-seed, brown or reddish, of a papyraceous 

 consistence, constant in its form, hollow interiorly, and placed 

 under the last dorsal ring, exactly above the rectum. It 

 opens by a pore on one side of the anus. It is contiguous to 

 that of the opposite side, but both one and the other are very 

 distinct. Their interior is clothed with the same crust, which 

 is fixed on the back of the animal when it can no longer pro- 

 duce explosions. A membranous tube, very short, moved 

 imquestionably by a sphincter muscle, serves to expel the 

 smoke. M. Dufour has observed in the carabi and blaps, an 

 organ similar to that which he names preparatory, but which 

 is never swollen with air. 



M. Dufour observes, on the digestive organ of this insect, 

 that the alimentary tube is about as long again as the body. 

 It commences with a straight, cylindrical oesophagus, occu- 

 pying the length of the corslet. The stomach, which comes 

 after, is lodged in the breast. When dilated, and filled with 

 air, it has the appearance of a small ovoid balloon, having 

 longitudinal stripes, and the intervals of which, slightly 

 convex, are divided transversely by other stripes, short and 

 whitish. When it is very much dilated all these lines dis- 

 appear. If contracted, its parietes are thick, its surface is 

 wrinkled, verrucose, and granular, and this organ then re- 

 sembles an ear of maize, furnished with its grains. One 

 line below the stomach is a small swelling, almost globular, 

 and formed of a slender, smooth membrane, without any 

 muscular appearance. The intestine succeeds, and presents 

 a cylindrical tube, bristling with small papillae. It makes a 

 circumvolution on itself, and before it terminates by the 

 rectum, it presents a swelling, almost similar in all respects 

 to the stomach. The rectum is a line in length. 



Since the publication of the ]\Iemoir from which these 



