THE 



SERRICORNES. 



The third* family of the Pentamerous Coleoptera 

 present us, as well as the preceding family and the 

 following of the same order, but four palpi. Their elytra 

 cover the abdomen, whkh distinguishes them, with some 

 other characters, from the Brachelytra just described. The 

 antennae, with some few exceptions, are of the same thickness 

 throughout, or more slender at their extremity, denticulated, 

 either like a saw or a comb, or even forming a fan, and more 

 developed in this point of view in the males. The penul- 

 timate articulation of the tarsi is often bilobate or bifid. 

 These characters present themselves very rarely in the fol- 

 lowing family, that of Clavicornes, and to which we arrive 



• The SUpha are the only pentamerous coleoptera which present, as 

 well as the preceding, an excrementitious apparatus, at the same time it 

 is not binary as in the latter, and the external conduit disgorges itself 

 directly into the rectum, like the urethra of birds. It would appear then, 

 from these relations, that Silpha should come, as well as the other clavi- 

 corni, immediately after the brachelytra. Other considerations had con- 

 ducted me to the same approximation. {See the Preface to my Work, 

 entitled, General Considerations on the Natural Order of the Crustacea, 

 &c.) According to M. Leon Dufour, who has furnished me with these 

 anatomical observations, the hepatic conduits of the Buprestides and 

 Enterides, or of my Sternoxi, resemble in their number, length, and mode 

 of insertion, those of the carabici. The Larapyri and Melyrides have 

 also but two hepatic vessels. But there are four in the Telephori, Lycus 

 and Ptiniori. 



