ORDER COLEOPTERA. 551 



MoLURis, Lat. Pimelia, Fab. Oliv. Psammodes, Kirb. 



The second tribe of Melasoma, Blapsides, receives its 

 name from the genus Blaps of Fab. The maxillary palpi 

 terminate in an articulation manifestly dilated like a triangle 

 or hatchet. M. Dufour has observed, that in this genus, as 

 ■well as in that of Asides, the stomach is less developed than 

 in pimelia, and that valve to which it reaches behind is not 

 at all formed of those four principal pieces, corneous and ap- 

 parently united, which constitutes it in the preceding tribe, 

 but by the approximation together of the fleshy columns of 

 its interior. The chylific ventricle is in proportion longer, 

 and the spermatic capsules are less numerous. The Blaps, ac- 

 cording to the same naturalist, are provided with a double 

 apparatus for the excrementary secretions, entirely different 

 from that of the pentamera ; it consists of two largeish vessels, 

 oblong, and situated altogether under the viscera of digestion 

 and generation, near each other, with the parietes thin and 

 surrounded with vascular folds, adhering, and more or less 

 turgid, and of which it is difficult to perceive the point of 

 insertion, in consequence of the impossibility of unrolling 

 them. The same must be said of the conduits destined to 

 evacuate the secreted liquid ; they are hidden by a sort of 

 membranaceous diaphragm applied by means of a fleshy 

 panicle on the last ventral segment. The secreted liquid is 

 voided laterally, and not at the end of the last ring ; it is 

 ejected a distance of seven or eight inches, is brownish, of a 

 very irritating acidity, and of a peculiar and penetrating 

 odour. 



This tribe will be formed of a single genus, that of 



* PL striata, unicolor, gibba, of Fab. See Lat. Gener. Crust et Insect. 

 II. 148. — Psammodes longicornisy Kirb. Lin. Trans. XII. 



