COLEOPTERA. 103 
those where the eyes are rounded and entire, or but slightly emar- 
ginated; even in this case the legs are long and slender, and the 
tarsi elongated. 
M. Leon Dufour remarks, that in their alimentary canal, as well as 
in the disposition of their hepatic vessels, these Insects bear a general 
resemblance to the Melasoma; contrary to the opinion of M. Marcel 
de Serres, he denies the existence of a gizzard. The alimentary 
canal, most commonly covered with papille, is preceded by a crop, 
but less or slightly marked in the Lamiz and Lepture, which, ac- 
cording to our system, terminate this family, The testes are formed 
by distinct, pediculated, and tolerably large spermatic capsules or 
sacs, which vary in number according to the genus. 
As almost all their larve live in the interior of trees, or under their 
bark, they are destitute of feet, or have but very small ones. Their 
body is soft, whitish, thickest anteriorly, and the head squamous and 
provided with stout mandibles, but without any other projecting part. 
They do much injury to trees, the large ones particularly, perforating 
them very deeply, or boring holes in them in every direction.* Some 
of them attack the roots of plants. The abdomen of the females is 
terminated by a tubular and horny ovipositor. These Insects pro- 
duce a small sharp sound by the rubbing of the pedicle of the base of 
their abdomen against the interior cf the parietes of the thorax. 
In the system of Linnzus, these Insects form three genera, 
Cerambyz, Leptura and Necydalis, which Geoffrey, Fabricius, and 
other naturalists have endeavoured to regulate and simplify by the 
transposition of species, or by establishing other generic sections. 
If we consider the nuimber of species that have been discovered since 
the time of the Pliny of the North, the insufficiency of the characters 
which designate these genera, and the confusion which still exists in 
several of them, it will be plain that a general and elaborate revisicn 
has become necessary. Let us hope that the researches of Messrs. 
Lepeletier and Serville, who have paid particular attention to this 
family, will remove these difficulties. 
We will, in the first place, divide the Longicornes into two sec- 
tions. 
In those of the first, the eyes are either strongly emarginated or 
lunate, or elongated and narrow; the head is plunged into the 
thorax, as far as those organs, without being distinguished from it by 
* See the Nat. Hist. of the Lamia amputator, by M. Langsd. Quilding, Lin. 
Trans, XIII. 
