ANNULOSA JAVANICA. 3? 



above described Javanese insect will be found to differ from the European S. marginatum in no 

 respect, except perhaps that of size. With respect to the general affinities of the genus Sphas- 

 ridium, it may be sufficient to mention, that this insect would have been a Dermestes with Lin- 

 naeus and Geoffroy, and an Hister with Degeer. 



Stirps 4. NECROPHAGA. Lat. 

 We now come to a stirps so close in affinity to the Philhydrida, that Dumeril has combined 

 them in one groupe, to which he has assigned theuameof Helocera, from the antennae in 

 both being in a similar manner clavated. 



The Necrophaga, however, of Latreille, as this stirps is characterized in the Genera Tnsectorum 

 et Crustaceorum, vol. i. p. 239, is a most natural groupe, distinguished from the Philhydrida by 

 their habits being less aquatic, their mouth being prominent, and mandibles generally ex- 

 serted. The first joint of the maxillary palpi is also evanescent in this stirps, so that these organs 

 may in general be described as three-jointed. Indeed it is only theDermestidce, or fifth family of the 

 Necrojihaga, which retains any character of the Sphcerididce, and the Dermestidce are also among 

 the least Chilopodomorphous insects of the tribe, being closely allied to the Byrrhidce, and so 

 leading to the Chilognathumorpha. Linnaeus and Geoffroy both observed the affinity existing be- 

 tween the Dermestidce and Sphcerididce, and have even described the S. scarabceoides as a Dermes- 

 tes. It is from insects, situated between the types of these two families, that the Byrrhidce take 

 their rise, and lead us to the tribe of insects havingChilognathiform larvce or Chilognathomorpha. 



Although the stirps of Necrophaga comprizes many herbivorous insects, we find that each 

 family composing it, has not merely a disposition to feed on animal matter, but retains, more- 

 over, many vestiges of the predaceous habits of the more typical insects of the tribe. Thus 

 among the Silphida;, the Silpka ^.-punctata climbs the oak for the purpose of devouring the 

 caterpillars, of which so many species infest this tree. Several other Silphce attack live terres- 

 trial Mollnsca, just as we have seen the neighbouring stirps of Philhydrida prey on certain aqua- 

 tic animals of the same sub-kingdom. The disposition of many of these insects to feed on fungi, 

 is in accord with a general remark to be made on carnivorous Coleoptera, namely, that as the 

 aberrant insects of any groupe leave the living animal food, which forms the entire subsistence 

 of the normal part of the same groupe, they prey on dead animal matter, or, in preference to 

 other vegetable matter, on fungi. 



With respect to the affinities which connect the families of this stirps, I shall, according to my 

 usual practice, avail myself of the argumentum ad verecundiam, in explaining them. True it is, 

 indeed, that no naturalist has yet thought of combining these observations, and the consequence 

 has been, that M. Latreille, among others, has never, in his various works, given the same 

 arrangement of the stirps twice. 



M. Latreille has shewn the affinity of the Dermestidce and Scaphididce, in what perhaps is 

 the most able of his works, I mean the Histoire Ge.ne.rale des Insectes, etc. vol. ix. p. 190 and 233, 

 where he has made one family of them, and thus adopted an opinion of Degeer. 



In his Considerations Generates, p. 176, as well as the Histoire Generate, Latreille has more- 

 over shewn the affinity of the Scaphididce to the Silphida, thus adopting an opinion of Linnaeus 



and Geoffrov. 



In 



