348 MANDIBULATA. — COLEOPTERA. 



at Coombe and Darenth woods, and in Epping-forest. " Oak- 

 hampton, in Somersetshire." — Dr. Leach. " Swansea." — L. W. 

 Dillwyn, Esq. 



Family XLL— BOSTRICHIDiE, Leach. 



Antenna with from six to eleven distinct articulations ; the basal one generally 

 elongate, and the terminal ones more or less incrassated, and forming a solid 

 or perfoliated club. Palpi generally short, mostly conic, rarely filiform : head 

 globose, sometimes produced anteriorly into a sort of rostrum ; deeply inserted 

 in the thorax, which is generally large, and frequently muricated : body 

 mostly cylindric ; sometimes truncate behind : tibia generally compressed, 

 and frequently denticulated exteriorly; tarsi mostly tetramerous, the third 

 joint sometimes bifid, in the pentamerous genera the fourth joint minute. 



The Bostrichidse — which may be instantly recognised from all the 

 preceding insects of this group by their distinctly clavate antenna?, 

 with the tendency of the head to become rostriform in front, and of 

 the tarsi to be quadriarticulate — both in their larva and perfect states 

 are exceedingly injurious to mankind from the havoc many of them 

 commit on forest trees, the larva making divers tortuous and laby- 

 rinthiform paths between the bark and wood, and in some cases 

 perforating the solid wood itself, to the total destruction of the 

 trees: of their ravages an interesting account is given in the eleventh 

 volume of Latreille's Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces, &c. ; by 

 which, amongst other facts, which my limits compel me to omit, 

 we learn that the females deposit from sixty to eighty eggs, and 

 that as many as 80,000 larvae have been calculated to inhabit a 

 single tree : the females (at least of some of the species) appear to 

 perforate the trees, and deposit their eggs as they proceed ; and 

 each larva, when born, proceeds nearly at a right angle to make a 

 distinct perforation, the series when completed not unaptly having 

 been compared to the apical portion of a broadly webbed feather, 

 the excavation formed by each larva gradually diverging, so that 

 as the animal increases in bulk, more space is acquired for it to 

 proceed in without interfering with its neighbours : — the following 

 are the indigenous genera : 



