ELATERID.E. ELATER. 251 



Genus CCXXII. — Elater Auctorum. 



Antennas short, with the hasal joint generally robust, sometimes elongate ; the 

 second and third joints small, subglobose, the remainder more or less conic, 

 and usually produced on the outer edge, into a serrated margin ; the apical 

 joint rarely larger than the preceding, and ovate simple. Mouth rarely 

 deflexed: head small, generally retracted: eyes small: thorax various; ge- 

 nerally rather elongate, the posterior angles more or less produced : body 

 slightly convex, linear-elongate, sometimes subovate : legs short ; tarsi 

 simple. 



From Cataphagus the present genus may be at once known by- 

 having the second and third joints of the antenna? short, and 

 usually subglobose, with the terminal one more or less elongate, 

 the body frequently depressed and broad; but as the genus at 

 present stands, it contains insects of sufficient dissimilarity to war- 

 rant the adoption of various subdivisions, several of which will 

 doubtless be hereafter formed into genera. 



A. With the body more or less cylindric. 



a. With the thorax short, convex anteriorly ; (mouth deflexed J. 



Sp. 1. fugax. Niger, punctatissimus, aureo-pubescens, elytris castaneis, tibiis 



tarsisque ferrugineis. (Long. corp. 3^ lin.) 

 El. fugax. Fabricius. — Steph. Catal. 122. No. 1234. 



Rather slender, attenuated posteriorly : black, very finely and thickly punctured, 

 and clothed with a golden pubescence: thorax immaculate; longer than 

 broad : elytra castaneous, or dull-brown, rather faintly striated, the interstices 

 punctured : body beneath black, with the apex sometimes slightly testaceous : 

 femora black, the apex, with the tibiae and tarsi, ferruginous; antennse black, 

 or dusky. 



Gyllenhal suspects this species may be merely the other sex, or a variety of the 

 following; a suspicion I do not feel justified in confirming, never having 

 taken either of the insects ; and my own examples being only the extreme 

 varieties *. 



My specimens of this insect were captured in June, 1821, in the 

 New Forest, Hants, near Brockenhurst. 



* The fallacies arising from contrasted descriptions of the extreme varieties of 

 unstable insects will be pointed out in my observations on the genus Necrodes, 

 in the Appendix. ¥ 



