94 INSECTA. 
FAMILY II. 
XYLOPHAGI. 
In our second family of tetramerous Coleoptera, we find the head 
terminating as usual, without any remarkable projection, in the form 
of a proboscis or snout. The antenne are thicker near the extremity, 
or perfoliate at base, always short, and cunsist of less than eleven 
joints in a great number. The joints of the tarsi are usually entire*, 
the penultimate being sometimes widened, and cordiform in others; 
in this case the antenn always terminate in a club, either solid and 
ovoid, or trifoliate, and the palpi are small and conical. 
These Insects mostly live in wood, which is perforated and chan- 
nelled in various directions by their larvae. When they happen to 
abound in forests, those of Pines and Firs particularly, they destroy 
in a few years immense numbers of trees, which are rendered useless 
for any purpose of art. Others do great injury to the Olive, and 
some again feed on Mushroums. 
We will divide this family into three sections. 
1. Those in which the antenne are composed of ten joints at most, 
sometimes terminating in a stout club, most commonly solid, and 
sometimes consisting of three elongated leaflets; and at others form- 
ing a cylindrical and perfoliate club from their base, and in which 
the palpi are conical, ‘The anterior legs of the greater number are 
dentated and armed witha stout hook, and the tarsi, of which the 
penultimate joint is frequently cordiferm or bilobate, are susceptible 
of being flexed on them. 
Some have very small palpi, the body convex and rounded above, 
or almost ovoid, the head globular aud plunged into the thorax. and 
the antenne solid or trilamellate, and preceded by five joints at least. 
These Xylophagi form the genus 
Sco.tytus, Geoff, 
Confounded by Linnzeus with the Dermestes, 
Sometimes the penultimate joint of the tarsi is bilobaté, and there 
are seven or eight joints in the antennz anterior to the club. In 
Hy.iureus, Lat.—Hy.esinus, Fab., 
The club of the antenne is solid, almost globular, obtuse, not at 
#* Their number in some appears to amount to five. ‘These Insects seem to con- 
nect themselves with the Crytophagi and other analogous Pentamera. Py 
