MR. A. MURRAY'S MONOGRAPH OF THE FAMILY OF NITIDULARIA. 215 
third volume), in which the Nitidulide came in turn to be treated of, appeared. Here 
he repeated his former views without material alteration, but with the addition of descrip- 
tions of the German species of Meligethes. 
I need not enumerate the authors of local faunas who have adopted Erichson's classi- 
fication; it would be simply a list of those of every fauna published since his work 
appeared—Sturm, Stephens, Redtenbacher, Wollaston, Bohemann, Leconte, Thomson, 
&c. Of these Wollaston, in his * Insecta Maderensia,’ has added the genus Xenostrongylus 
to the group, and Dr. Leconte of Philadelphia Amartus (a subgenus of Carpophilus) 
and Psilopyga (a well-marked form of the Strongyline). Redtenbacher, in his ‘ Fauna 
Austriaca,’ has proposed to place the genus Spherites in this family, and Thomson, 
in his * Fauna of Scandinavia,’ has made a similar suggestion with regard to the genus 
Nosodendron,—propositions, however, which seem unwarranted. Mr. Westwood, in a 
separate notice, has added the genus Paromia to the Ipide. 
The same estimation of Erichson's system has been shown by the authors of works of 
a more extended and general nature. M. Lacordaire has followed it implicitly, and 
without correction, in his ‘ Histoire des Insectes, as has M. Jacquelin Duval in his 
‘Genera des Coléoptéres d'Europe, who, however, has proposed two subgenera of the 
Brachypterida. 
Scarcely anything has been written upon the larvee of this family. Insufficient notices 
of one or two by Bouché (Naturg. der Insect.), a description of one species by Curtis, 
and of two by Erichson (Insekten Deutschlands, vol. iii.), a résumé of these by Candèze 
and Chapuis in their Catalogue of the Larvee of Coleoptera, and a description of two 
exotic species by Candéze in his * Histoire des Métamorphoses de quelques Coléoptéres 
exotiques,’ and of one or two by M. Perris in his papers on the Insects of the Maritime 
Pine (Pinus maritimus), are all that has been done on the subject worth mentioning. 
CHARACTERS OF THE FAMILY. 
Antenne.—The antennz characterize the whole family, but do not furnish distinctions 
of much value for minor sectional division. They are clavate, but not geniculated. 
They vary in the size, form, and proportion of the articles; and the claviform character 
passes through all the gradations from an almost circular club of comparatively large 
dimensions as in Camptodes or Aithina, to little more than moniliform antenne some- 
what thickened towards the apex as in Brachypterus and Brachyleptus. The propor- 
tions of the articles, moreover, are not always, although generally, constant ; in Mysfrops, 
for example, no two species have them alike. The majority have the first article 
thick, the second short, the third longer, the fourth shorter, the fifth, sixth, and 
seventh small and moniliform and about equal in size; the eighth more or less ex- 
panded, forming a transition to the club, which is composed of the ninth, tenth, and 
eleventh. ` | | 
Antennal grooves.—In some species there are grooves or hollowed channels under 
the head, in which the stalks of the antennz repose when at rest. These usually consist 
of a narrow groove at the inner and under corner of the eye (fig. 1), extending back- 
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