36 Mr, John Curtis's Descriptions 



by my distinguished friend Mr. Leon Dufour,* who entertains 

 an idea that it is carnivorous. I wish also to make collectors 

 acquainted with this larva, and its economy, hoping that it may 

 lead to the capture of more specimens of the perfect insect. 



I found these larv?e in the decayed wood of a felled tree, in 

 March, and, like Messrs. Chapuis and Cand^ze, the evidence I 

 have of their being the larvae of Athous rhomheus is, my having 

 found with them the thorax of that species, with the exuvia ; but 

 they certainly agree with the description and figure of A. hirtus 

 of those authors,-]- as well as with De Geer's figure and description 

 of Elatcr iindalus.X M. Desvignes found in August the larva 

 of A. rhomheus in a birch-tree in Sherwood Forest, and the pupa 

 and imago in decayed oak branches. § 



Family 0PATR1D.E. 

 Genus Bolitophagus, 111., Eledona, Lat. (PI. V. figs. 13 & H.) 

 Sp. 3. B. reticidatus, Linn. ; crenaliis, Fab. 



Soft, linear, curved in repose ; white, with a few scattered 

 hairs. Head orbicular, shining, horny, yellowish (fig. 15) ; eyes 

 none. Labrum orbicular, bristly (fig. 17). Mandibles meeting, 

 thick, very horny, bifid and pitchy (fig. 18). Maxillse terminating 

 in a large pilose oval lobe (fig. 19). Palpi stout and triariiculate, 

 2nd basal joints very thick, 3rd more slender, conical and termi- 

 nated by a gland (fig. 19 a.) Labium subcordate. Palpi minute and 

 biarticulate. Antennae remote, inserted on each side of the man- 

 dibles, triarticulate, stout, especially the basal joint; 2nd oblong; 

 3rd longer and more slender, terminating in two unequal claws, 

 one with a bristle at the apex (fig. 20). Thorax horny, suborbi- 

 cular, concave before ; the two following thoracic segments simi- 

 lar to those of the abdomen, but they are shorter, with a slate- 

 coloured cloud on the back ; abdominal segments fatty, the sides 

 convex ; the tail tapering, and furnished at each angle with a 

 conical spine, with transverse striae and horny at the tip (fig. 21). 

 Stigma distinct. Legs sprawling, stout ; coxae large, very broad 

 at the base ; thighs robust, narrowed at the base ; tibia slenderer, 

 tapering, furnished with a horny claw (fig. 22, a middle leg). 



Mr. Foxcroft found a very large old boletus upon a beech-tree 

 in the Black Forest, Rannoch, Perthshire, which he conveyed to 

 London, where he has been breeding the beetles, I believe, all the 



* Annalesdes Sci. Nat. 2nd Series, vol. xiv. p. 41, pi. 3, B, f. I — 5. 

 t Catalogue des Larves, p. 144, pi. 5, fig. 1. 

 t De Geer's Mem. vol. iv. p. 155, pi. 5, fig. 23. 

 § EDtotnologist, p. 188. 



