ORDER COLEOPTERA. 395 



many of them. The majority of them live in carcases, and 

 thus diminish the quantity of miasma which would otherwise 

 proceed from them. Some others climb on plants, and par- 

 ticularly the stalks of corn, where the smaller helices are 

 found to eat the animal. Others remain on elevated trees, 

 and devour the caterpillars. Their larvae are equally agile, 

 live in the same manner, and often assemble in great numbers. 

 They have much resemblance to the perfect insect. Their 

 body is flatted, composed of twelve segments, whose posterior 

 angles are acute, with the posterior extremity more narrow, 

 and terminated by two conical appendages. 



In the majority of the species, the two anterior tarsi of the 

 males are alone more dilated than the others. The antennas 

 are thickened insensibly, or terminate abruptly in a knob of 

 four articulations at the most. The second and third articu- 

 lations are but little difi^erent ; the last of the maxillary, is at 

 most, of the length of the preceding, and often a little 

 shorter, and a little more slender. 



The species in which the extremity of the antennas is dis- 

 tinctly perfoliate, or composed of articulations which, with 

 the exception of the last, are transverse, and more broad than 

 long, in which this knob is abrupt, and whose elytra are 

 emarginate at their extremity, at least in the males, form the 

 genus Thatsiatophilus of Dr. Leach. {Silpha sinuata, Fab. 

 Oliv. iUd, II. 12 ; S. dispar, Illig. Gyll. &c.) 



Those in which the elytra are entire, but which otherwise 

 have similar antennas, compose that which he terms Oicep- 



TOMA. 



S. Tkoracica, Lin. Fab. Oliv. Col. II. ii. 1, 3, a, b, whose 

 body is black, with the corslet red, silky, and three raised 

 and flexuous lines, the external one of which is shorter, form- 

 ing a keel, and terminating near a transverse tubercle on each 

 elytrum. In the male the posterior extremity of these elytra 



