ON DECOMPOSED VEGETABLE MATTER. 57 



form with the hind-legs proceeding from a transverse 

 moveable trochanter, and placed so near the hinder extre- 

 mity of the body, and so far from each other, as to give 

 the insect in walking the most awkward appearance pos- 

 sible. This peculiar formation is nevertheless particularly 

 serviceable to its possessors, in rolling the balls of excre- 

 mentitious matter in which they inclose their eggs. 



Proceeding upon the data which I have been able to 

 collect, it may be said that the tropical Scarabaida are to 

 those from without the tropics nearly as 5 : 1. Out of 450 

 species and upwards in my father's collection, only nine are 

 natives of England ; and of these nine, no less than eight 

 are Onthophagi, which I consider as composing an extreme 

 genus of the family, not the less interesting from having 

 been noticed by Pliny a . 



Fam. III. APHODIID^. 



Antennae articulis novem, capite paulo longiores ; 



Articulo primo elongato, aliorum conjunctim vix lon- 



gitudine, cylindrico, ad apicem paulo crassiore ; se- 



cundo hemisphcerico ; 

 Capitulo subgloboso-ovato, triphyllo. 

 Labrum sub ch/peo latitans, membranaceum, margine an- 



tico vix ciliato, medio subacuto. 

 JMandibulse clypeo obtecta, ad basin cornea, deinde in la- 



minam brevem, compressam, dilatatam, coriaceam 



aut nix membranaceani products ; latere interno et 



apice haudjimbriatis. 



a "Tauri vocantur Scarabasi terrestres, ricino similes ; nomen cornicula 

 dedere. Alii pediculos terra vocant." Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxx. c, 12. 



