SILPHID7E. 15 



transverse-quadrate, the hinder margin rather broader than the apex, the 

 sides gradually rounded: elytra oblong-ovate, with very obsolete striae: body 

 beneath pitchy-black ; legs and antenna? ferruginous. 

 Whether this be the true Ch. gausapata, Spence's MSS. (inadvertently called 

 gomphosata in my Catalogue), I am unable to determine— the insect above 

 described is clearly distinct from either of its congeners, and may be known 

 by the greater density of the pubescence with which it is clothed, and its 

 darker hue. 



Found near London ; in Devonshire, and, I believe, in Yorkshire 

 and Norfolk. 



Family XVIII.— SILPHIDiE, Leach. 



Antenna about as long as the thorax, gradually thickening towards their ex- 

 tremities, or terminated by a perfoliate club, the latter generally 4 or 5-jointed, 

 rarely 3-jointed. Palpi filiform, the maxillary rather longer than the labial : 

 the terminal joint rather slender, cylindric : mandibles with their apex en- 

 tire : body ovate, depressed : head inflected, much narrower than the body, 

 contracted posteriorly, and forming a neck; thorax large, peltate, more or less 

 semicircular or orbicular : elytra covering the greater portion of the abdomen, 

 or truncated, with the outer margin generally channelled : abdomen with its 

 apex rather acute, especially in the female : legs not much elongated : tarsi 

 five-jointed, the anterior more or less dilated in the males. 



The Silphidse, which form the typical group of the Necrophaga, 

 delight in prowling amongst carrion, carcasses, or any putrefying 

 animal matter, upon which they subsist (whence they contract a 

 most disagreeable foetid odour), but some few attack living cater- 

 pillars or terrestrial mollusca ; they are consequently of great utility 

 in the economy of nature, by thus removing those animal nuisances 

 which would otherwise tend to infect the atmosphere and render it 

 unwholesome. 



The larva? inhabit the same materials, and are frequently observed 

 in company with the perfect insect : the body is elongate, very 

 much depressed, generally black, composed of twelve segments, 

 terminating on the sides in a sharp angle; the anterior segment is 

 largest : the head is small, furnished with two strong jaws ; the 

 antennae short, filiform, triarticulate : the legs six in number, short, 

 three-jointed, the terminal one with a hook at its tip; the last seg- 

 ment of the body has two conical appendages : they are very active, 

 and change to pupa beneath the ground. 



