454 
INSECTA, 
Necrophorus, Fah. — Silpha, Lin. — Dermestes, Geoff. 
The antennae, hardly longer than the head, terminate abruptly in 
an almost globular club of four joints, the first of which is long, and 
the second much shorter than the third. The body nearly forms a 
parallelopiped; the thorax is widest anteriorly; all the tibiae are 
strong, widened at the extremity and terminated by stout spurs; the 
elytra are truncated at right angles. The maxillae are destitute of a 
horny unguiculus. 
Their instinctive habit of burying the bodies of Moles, Mice, and 
other small quadrupeds, have procured for them the names of enter- 
reurs porte-morts. When they find a dead animal of the above 
description, they work under it and excavate a hole of sufficient di- 
mensions to contain the body, which they gradually drag into it; in 
this body they deposit their ova, and thus the larvae find their food in 
the very nidus in rvhich they are hatched. They are long, and of a 
greyish white colour; the anterior segments are covered superiorly 
with a small, fulvous-brown, squamous plate, and the posterior with 
little elevated points. They are furnished with six feet and strong 
mandibles. AVhen about to pass into the state of a chrysalis, they 
penetrate deeply into the earth, where they construct a cell, which 
they line with a viscid substance. 
These Insects, as well as many others that inhabit dead animal 
bodies, diffuse a strong odour resembling musk. Their habits have 
lately attracted the attention of Mole-catchers, and in the work enti- 
tled L’Ai't du Taupier, we find certain facts relative to this subject 
which had escaped the observations of naturalists. The sense of 
smell must be excessively acute in these Insects, for but a short time 
elapses after a Mole has been killed, when Necrophori are seen cir- 
cling about it, although they were previously sought for in vain in 
the same locality. 
The digestive canal of the Necrophori and Silphae is at least thrice 
the length of the body. The oesophagus is very short and followed 
by an ellipsoidal gizzard, whose lining tunic is slightly scabrous and 
bristled, at least in several species, with pointed setae variously di- 
rected, but arranged in eight longitudinal bands separated by smooth 
intervals. The intestinal canal is very long, particularly in the Ne- 
crophori and Necrodes. Its surface, in the latter, as well as in the 
Silphae, is thickly studded with salient and granular points. It opens, 
either laterally or directly, into a smooth enlargement, which, ac- 
cording to Dufour — Ann. des Sc. Nat., Octob. 1824 — may be com- 
pared to a caecum. To the side is appended a pediculated oval or 
oblong bursa, Avhich constitutes a part of the excrementitious appa- 
ratus. There are four biliary vessels, slender, extremely long and 
veiy flexuous, each of which is separately inserted round the extre- 
mity of the chylific ventricle. — Dufoiir, lb., July, 1825. From the 
figure of the alimentary canal of the Necrophorus vespillo, given by 
Randohr, it ajjpears that the great intestine, instead of being covered 
Avith granular papillae, is furnished with transverse muscular fillets, 
forming annular plicae, 
