INSECTA, 
458 
They inhabit mushrooms. But few species are known; one from 
Cayenne and the rest from the north of Europe (a). 
Choleva, Lat. Spence , — Catops, Fab . — Peltis, Geoff. 
Most of the joints of the antennal club turbiniform and more or 
less perfoliaceous ; maxillary palpi very salient and abruptly subulate ; 
the body ovoid ; thorax plane, without a border ; the four first joints 
of the anterior tarsi, and the first of the intermediate ones, dilated in 
the males of some species — Catops blapsoides, Germ. 
In the Cholevae properly so called, the antennae are about the length 
of the head and thorax; their eighth joint, or the second of the club, 
is evidently shorter than the preceding and following one, and some- 
times is even indistinct; the last is semi-ovoidal and pointed *. 
In the Mylcechus, Lat., Oliv., — Catops, Payk., Gyll., the antennae 
are shorter, the eighth joint is larger than the preceding, and almost 
equal to the follotving one, the last is rounded and obtuse on the 
summit f. 
The fifth tribe, or that of the Nxtidulare^;, approximates to the 
fourth in the scutiform and bordered body, but the mandibles are bifid 
or emarginated at the extremity ; the tarsi seem to consist of but four 
joints, the first and last, in some, being only visible beneath, where 
they merely form a slight projection, and the penultimate in the re- 
mainder being very small, in the form of a knot, enclosed between 
the lobes of the preceding ones. The antennal club is always perfo- 
liaceous, consists of three or four joints, and is usually short or but 
little elongated. 
The palpi are short and filiform, or somewhat thickest at the ex- 
tremity, The elytra in several are short or truncated. The legs are 
but slightly elongated, and their tibiae frequently widened at the end; 
the tarsi are furnished with hairs or pellets. The habitation of these 
Insects varies with the species ; they are found on flowers, in mush- 
rooms, putrified meat, and under the bark of trees. They form the 
genus 
Nitidula. 
In some, the antennal club consists of but two joints, and the an- 
terior part of the head projects in the manner of a semicircular flat- 
tened clypeus, covering the mandibles and other parts of the mouth. 
* Lat. Gener. Crust, et Insect., II, p. 26. Seethe Monograph of this genus, 
puhlished by M. Spence in the Lin. Trans., and Paykull and Gyllenhal. 
p Lat. Ib., p. 30, VIII, ii ; Oliv., Encyclop. Method., article Mylcsque. 
(a) Oliv., Col. II, 20. The Americans have at least one species, the S. i-gvffa~ 
turn, Knoch, Melsh. Catal., if not another, the S. i-pustulatum Id. Ib. See Say, 
Journ. of the Acad, of Nat. Sc. of Philad. Ill, 199 . — Eng. Ed. 
