420 
INSECTA. 
Tachyporus, Grav. 
Similar to Tachinus in the tibiae and antennae, but the termination 
of the palpi is subulate 
The genus Callicerus, Gravenhorst, is unknown to me. The 
Stenosthetus of Megerle, mentioned ;in the Catalogue, &c. of 
Dejean, presents all the characters of a true Pselaphus, and must 
be suppressed — such also is now the opinion of this last named natu- 
ralist. 
FAMILY III. 
SERRICORNES. 
In the third family f of pentamerous Coleoptera, as in the preced- 
ing and following families of the same order, Ave find but four palpi. 
The elytra cover the abdomen, which, with some other characters, 
distinguish the Insects Avhich compose it from the Brachelytra just 
mentioned. The antennae, with some exceptions, are equal through- 
out, or smaller at the extremity, dentated, either like a saw or 
a comb, or even like a fan, and in this respect are most developed in 
the males. The penultimate joint of the tarsi is frequently bilobate 
or bifid. These characters are rarely found in the following family, 
that of the Clavicornes, to which we arrive by such insensible gra- 
dations, that to define its limits rigorously becomes a very difficult 
matter. 
Some, ill which the body is ahvays firm and solid, and most com- 
monly oval or elliptical, with partly contractile legs, have the head 
plunged vertically into the thorax up to the eyes ; and the praester- 
num, or median portion of that thorax, elongated, dilated or reach- 
ing to beneath the mouth, usually distinguished on each by a groove 
is wide, the muzzle advances, the four posterior tarsi arc evidently longer than their 
respective tihioe, appear to form a particular division. 
* Oxyporus rufipes, Fab., Panz., lb., XXVII, 20 ; — O. ymmjinafus, F. ; Panz., 
17 ; — 0. chrysomelbms, Fab.; Panz., Ib., IX, 14; — O. analis, Fab.; Panz., 
Ib., XXII, 16 ; — O. ahdominalis, Fab. 
f The Silphce are the only pentamerous Coleoptera in which, as in the preceding 
ones we find an excrementitions apparatus ; but it is not binary as in the latter, 
and the exterior canal opens directly into the rectum, like the urethra of birds. 
From these considerations then it would seem that the Silphse, as w'ell as otlier 
Clavicornes, should come directly after the Brachelytra. Other considerations liad 
led me to a similar approximation. — See preface to my Consid. Gen^r. sur I’Ordre 
Nat. des Crust., &c. — According to M. Leon Dufour, who has furnished me with 
these anatomical remarks, the hepatic ducts of the Buprestides and Enterides, or 
of my Sternoxi, in number, length, and mode of insertion, resemble those of the 
Carabici. The Lampyrides and Melyrides, also, have but two hepatic vessels, but 
there are foirr in Telephorus, Lycus, and Ptinus. Of all the insects of this (Serri- 
corne) family, whose organization he has investigated, he finds the longest alimentary 
canal in Malachius, Drilus, and Anobium. 
