COLEOPTERA. 505 
very much broadened. They live in the trunks of trees, between 
the bark and the wood, hollowing out for themselves irregular 
galleries, and remaining sometimes in this state for ten years before 
metamorphosing. Laporte de Castelnau and Gory have described 
and made drawings of about thirteen hundred 
species of Buprestide. Fig. 553 represents the 
Buprestis imperialis. The Buprestis albosparsa, 
the genera Julodis, the Chrysochroas, and the 
Trachys belong also to the great family of Bu- 
prestidé. The Cleride are connected with the 
preceding. They have the thorax narrower than 
the elytra, and rather long; their integu- 
ments are less solid than those of the Elate- 
ride and the Buprestide. The latter are 
phytophagous, the former carnivorous. The "Véiaipaiais: 
principal type of this family is the Clerus for- 
micarius, russety, with the head and legs black, whose larva lives 
at the expense of the larve of the weevil. Another genus, the 
Necrobia, which lives on dried animal matter, has become cele- 
brated, as it was the cause of the salvation of the greatest ento- 
mologist of France. The name of Necrobia (from vexode and fds) 
does not mean ‘“ which lives on dead bodies,” but it means “life 
in death.” Here is the story of which this name is destined to 
preserve the remembrance, and which Latreille himself has related 
in his ‘‘ Histoire des Insectes.”” Before 1792, Latreille was known 
only from some memoirs which he had published on insects. He 
was then priest at Brives-la-Gaillarde, and was arrested with the 
Curés of Limousin, who had not taken the oath. These unfortu- 
nates were then taken to Bordeaux, in carts, to be transported to 
Guyana. Arrived at Bordeaux in the month of June, they were 
incarcerated in the prison of the Grand Séminaire till a ship 
should be ready to take them on board. In the meanwhile, the 
9th Thermidor arrived, and caused the execution of the sentence 
which condemned the priests who had not taken the oath to 
transportation to be for a while suspended. However, the prisons 
emptied themselves but slowly, and those who had been condemned 
had none the less to go into exile. Only their transportation had 
been put off till the spring. 

