540 . CLASS INSECTA. 



ccEcum, by a single tubular trunk, resulting from the con- 

 fluence of two strong short branches, composed themselves of 

 the union of three biliary vessels. The bile is yellow, some- 

 times brown or violet. The alimentary tube is long, and its 

 length, in our first tribe (Pimelia), is three times that of the 

 body ; the oesophagus is long, and opens into a gizzard, 

 smooth or glabrous on the outside, more developed in these 

 last insects, where it forms an ovoid pouch lodged in the 

 chest; it has on the inside fleshy folds, or longitudinal co- 

 lumns, terminating in some {Erodia, Pimelia,) at the side of 

 the chylific ventricle, by a valve formed principally of four 

 corneous oval apparently united pieces ; the chylific ventricle 

 is elongated, flexeous or folded, in general beset with small 

 papillae, similar to projecting points, and terminating in a 

 pad, callous within, and in which the biliary vessels are in- 

 serted. The same naturalist has observed, in some sub-genera 

 of the family {Blaps, J sides), a salivary apparatus, consisting 

 of two vessels, or floating tubes, sometimes perfectly simple 

 {Asides), sometimes irregularly branched (Blaps), and he 

 has no doubt that these vessels exist in the other Pimeliaria. 

 M. Marcel de Serres has studied with much care the texture 

 of the tunic of the digestive canal. The adipose tissue is 

 more abundant in these heteromera than in the following ; 

 hence they are able, even when pierced and fixed by a pin, 

 to live nearly six months, without taking food, as I have seen 

 in some species of akis. 



We shall first divide this family, which forms, in the sys- 

 tem of Linnaeus, the genus Tenehrio, from the absence or 

 presence of wings. 



Among those deprived of these organs, and whose wing- 

 cases are generally soldered, some have the palpi nearly fili- 

 form, or terminating in an articulation moderately dilated, 

 and not forming a knob distinctly hatchet-formed or triangu- 



