COLEOPTERA. 443 



corneous tooth or hook, all the joints of the tarsi are entire, 

 and the eyes oblong and but very slightly prominent, a. cir- 

 cumstance, which, according to M. Marcel de Serres, indi- 

 cates their nocturnal habits. Almost all these Insects live on 

 the ground,,, either in sand, or under stones, and frequently in 

 cellars, stables, and other dark places about our habitations. 

 According toM. Dufour — Ann. des Sc. Nat., V, p. 276 — 

 the biliary vessels are inserted into the inferior face of the 

 caecum by a single trunk, resulting from the confluence of 

 two very short branches, formed by the union of three biliary 

 vessels. The bile is yellow, sometimes brown or violet. The 

 alimentary canal — Ann. des Sc. Nat., Ill, p. 478 — is long, 

 and its length in our first tribe, or the Pimeliariae, is thrice 

 that of the body ; the esophagus is long and leads to a crop 

 smooth or glabrous externally, that is more developed in these 

 latter Insects, where it forms an ovoid sac lodged in the pec- 

 tus ; it is marked internally with longitudinal plicae or fleshy 

 columns, terminating in some — Erodii, Phnelise — near the 

 chylific ventricle, at a valve formed of four principal corneous, 

 oval and connivent parts ; the chylific ventricle is elongated, 

 flexuous or doubled, most commonly covered with little pa- 

 pillae resembling projecting points, and terminated by a small 

 collar, callous within, which receives the first insertion of the 

 biliary vessels. The same anatomist has observed in some 

 subgenera of this family — Blaps, ^sida — a salivary apparatus, 

 consisting of two floating vessels or tubes, sometimes per- 

 fectly simple — Asida — and at others irregularly ramous — 

 Blaps ; — he is also convinced that they exist in the other Pime- 

 liarise. M. Marcel de Serres — Observations sur les' usages 

 des diverses parties du tube intestinal des Insectes, Ann. du 

 Mus. d'Hist. Nat. — has carefully studied the texture of the 

 tunics of the alimentary canal(l). The adipose tissue is more 



(1) what M. Dufour styles the chylific ventricle, M. de Serres calls the sto- 

 mach, and relative to other Insects the duodenum. What he calls the small intes- 

 tine is considered by the first as the caecum. According' to M- T)ufi3ur, M. M. de 

 Serres has not mentioned the crop of the Melasoma, although in Akis and Pimclia 

 it is very apparent. 



