COLEOPTERA. 373 



These animals feed on cadaverous or stercoraceous matters 

 and decomposing vegetable substances, such as dung, old 

 mushrooms, &c.: some establish their domicil under the bark 

 of trees. Their gait is slow, and their colour a brilliant black 

 or bronze. Such of their larvae as have been observed — those 

 of the merdaj'ius, cadaverinus — feed on the same substances as 

 the perfect Insect. Their body is glabrous, soft, and of a yel- 

 lowish white, the head and first segment excepted, the der- 

 mis of which is brown or reddish ; it is provided with six 

 short legs, and is terminated posteriorly by two articulated 

 appendages, and an anal and tubular prolongation; the squa- 

 mous plate of the first segment is longitudinally canaliculated. 



This tribe, as we have alreaidy stated, will consist exclu- 

 sively of the genus 



HisTER, Lin. 



Baron PaykuU restricted his division of this genus to the separa- 

 tion of certain strongly flattened species, with which he formed that 

 of Hololepta, but Doctor Leach has established four more(l). 



In some, the tibiae, at least the anterior ones, are triangular, den- 

 tated exteriorly, and the antennae always free and exposed^ the body 

 is generally square, but slightly or not at all inflated. 



They may be divided into two subgenera. In the first or 



Hololepta, Payk. 



The body is strongly flattened, the praesternum does not project 

 over the mouth, and the four posterior tibiae have but a single range 

 of spines; the terminal lobe of the maxillae is prolonged; the mentum 

 is deeply emarginated, and the palpi, proportionally more advanced, 

 are formed of almost cylindrical joints. 



They live under the bark of trees. The animal figured by Pay- 

 kull, as the larva of a species of this subgenus, is that of a species 

 of Syrphus, or Fly(2). 



The other Histerdides, in which the prsesternum projects over the 

 mouth, the maxillae are terminated by a short lobe, with but slightly 

 projecting palpi composed of joints which,, the last excepted, are 



(1) Zool. Miscel]., in, p. 76. 



(2) Hist. Monog-., p. 101, et seq. 



