SILPHIDiE. 101 



Taken abundantly both in the Journey from New York to Cumberland-house, 

 in Lat. 65°. and in Canada by Dr. Bigsby. This species abounds in the huts of 

 the Laplanders, devouring every thing — skins, flesh, and dried fish. 



This insect was sent me by Dr. Harris, as the Sllpha candata of Say, and it 

 agrees very well with his description, but it is evidently the Sllpha lapponica of 

 modern Entomologists, which Linne regarded as a variety only of S. rugosa. 

 Gyllenhal describes the ridges of the elytra as running straight — they certainly run 

 straighter than those of the last named species, with which he compares it, but the 

 inner ones are flexuose at the end. 



N. B. The elytra of the male have a very slight sinus at the tip, and no acumen. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Body obloug, black. Three last joints of the antenna? brown ; head and prothorax covered with 

 rather long decumbent hairs, of a yellowish cinereous colour with somewhat of silvery lustre : in the 

 prothorax, in some specimens, there are six rows of black spots, viz. two discoidal ones, each contain- 

 ing five spots, next, on each side, is an intermediate one of five, and lastly, a lateral one of only 

 two ; in other specimens there are only the discoidal rows, each consisting of five spots ; and one 

 that I received from Canada has no spots at all : scutellum subacuminate, subcinereous from hairs 

 with a black spot on each side ; elytra black, punctured, with some very short scattered cinereous 

 hairs, scarcely visible except under a lens ; on each elytrum are three longitudinal ridges, the outer- 

 most one more elevated, but shorter, than the others, and nearly reaching the base, bent inwards a 

 little at the apex ; the intermediate one reaching neither base nor tip of the elytra, and more bent 

 and flexuose at the apex, and that nearest the suture taking its origin a little nearer the base than 

 the last and approaching nearer to the tip where it is flexuose ; on each side of the two inner ridges 

 is a row of punctures very close to each other, and in the intervals between the ridges are four rows, 

 one in each, of hemispheric tubercles ; the elytra are acuminated at the apex and sinuated. 



(143) 3. * Oiceoptoma (Thanatophilus) trituberculatum. 



Trituberculate O. Thanatophilus. 



O. T. ( trituberculatum J pubescente-fuscum ; prothora.ce subcanaUculato, elytris tricarinatin postice trituberculatis. 

 Tiitubereulate O. Thanatophilus, brown from pubescence ; prothorax a little channelled, elytra with three ridges, and three 

 tubercles near the apex. 



Length of the body 4| lines. 



Several specimens taken in the Journey from New York to Cumberland-house, 

 and in Lat. 54°. 



