COLEOPTERA, 353 



• 

 of the thorax and the elytra blood-redj elytra silky and slightly 

 striated. The larva lives under the bark of the Oak. It is li- 

 near, flattened, and black, ihe last ring red, resembling a plate 

 with two kinds of horns, cylindrical, and, as it were, annulated 

 or articulated, and arcuated inwards. It has six small feet. 



Lycus minutus. Fab.; Panz., Faun. Insect. Germ., XLI, 2. 

 Smaller; all black, the extremity of the elytra excepted, which 

 is red, and the end of the antennae, which is reddish. Also 

 found in France, but in forests of the mountain Fir(l). 



Omalisus, Geoff. Oliv. Fab. 



No apparent snout; joints of the antennae almost cylindrical, 

 slightly reduced at base, and the second and third much shorter 

 than the following ones; penultimate joint of the tarsi alone in the 

 form of a reversed heart; the others elongated and cylindrical; elytra 

 tolerably solid and firni. 



O. suturalis, Fab.; Oliv., Col. II, 24, 1, 2. Rather more than 

 two lines in length, black, elytra blood-red, the suture excepted. 

 Found in the woods in the vicinity of Paris, and in the forest of 

 Saint-Germain particularly, on the Oaks, in spring(2). 

 The other Lampyrides of our first division are distinguished from 

 the preceding ones, not only by the want of a snout, by their head, 

 which, in the males almost entirely occupied by the eyes, is entirely 

 or for the greater part concealed under a semicircular or square 

 thorax, but also by a very remarkable character, either common to 

 both sexes, or peculiar to the females, that of being phosphorescent, 

 whence the names of glow-worms, fire-flies, Sec, given to these In- 

 sects. 



Their body is extremely soft, the abdomen particularly, which 

 has the appearance of being plaited. The luminous matter occupies 

 the inferior part of the last two or three annuli, which differ in co- 

 lour from the rest, and are usually yellowish or whitish. The light 

 they diffuse is more or less vivid, and greenish or whitish, like that 

 of the different kinds of phosphorus. . It seems that they can vary 

 its action at pleasure, a fact particularly observable when they are 

 seized or held in the hand. They live a long time in vacuum and in 

 different gases, the nitrous acid, muriatic and sulphurous gases 

 excepted, in which they soon expire. Placed in hydrogen gas, they, 

 sometimes at least, detonate. They continue* to live after the ex- 

 cision of this luminous portion of their abdomen, and the part thus 



(1) The Lye. reticulatus, bi color, serraiicornis, fasciatus, aurora, &c. 



(2) See Encyc. Method., article Omalise. 



Vol. III.— 2 U 



