ARTICULATA. 159 
has its station, in such a manner as to imitate the ticking of a 
watch. 
Lymewylon, the type of the family Zymexylonide, is very destructive to 
ship timber in the dockyards of Europe. 
The Bostrichide have a hard cylindrical body, a deeply seated globular 
head, clavate antenne, strong mandibles, and the pronotum projecting over 
the head, and often scabrous. They live in timber, boring holes in the wood 
and bark. 
With few exceptions, the section LZeteromera have four articulations to 
the posterior tarsi, and five to the others. They are generally vegetable 
feeders, and differ much in their habits. Some live upon plants, and are 
variously colored ; others live in dark places, and are of obscure colors ; 
and some, which are allied to the latter, are found in desert plains. Latreille 
divides this section into four groups, named MMelasoma, Taxicornia, Stene- 
lytra,and Trachelides. Westwood divides them into three stirpes, Zrachelia, 
Varicolores, and Melasomata. The Zrachelia (Pyrochroa, pl. 81, fig. 49) 
are an extension of Latreille’s group Zrachelides, and contain a number of 
active insects, with the body and elytra soft. They are found upon plants, 
and are generally of bright colors. The head is enlarged behind the eyes, 
and the antennee are slender and branched. 
Westwood indicates the following families in his tribe Zrachelia: 1, 
Notovide ; 2, Pyrochroide ; 3, Lagrude ; 4, Horude ; 5, Mordetlide ; 
6, Meloide ; 7, Salpingide ; 8, Oedemeride ; 9, Melandryide. 
There is a good deal of confusion in the names of several genera of 
Heteromera, on account of an endeavor to set aside names which should 
stand on the ground of priority. Linneeus, the inventor of the modern 
nomenclature, applied certain ancient names, as Cicindela, Buprestis, and 
Cantharis, to insects, without caring particularly to what insects they were 
applied by the ancients, and properly, because with the ancients these were 
worthless vernacular names; and as we do not go either to Pliny or to a 
modern retailer of drugs to learn entomology, we have no particular interest 
in knowing the names objects bear with them. 
With Linneeus, the blistering flies formed a part of his genus Meloe, and 
he formed a genus, Cantharis, in 1735, for an insect to which Scheffer 
applied the useless synonym of Zelephorus, in 1766. In 1764, Geoffroy 
properly separated the blistering flies from J/Zeloe, assigning to them the 
name Cantharis of the druggists, which he had no right to do, that name 
being already applied to a genus, so that it was virtually without a name until 
Fabricius, in 1775, rectified the blunder of Geoffroy, by naming the blister 
flies Lytta, a name adopted by Dejean, Say, Erichson, and others. 
Many of the J/elocde have the power of raising blisters when applied to 
the skin, and different species are used for this purpose in different coun- 
tries. In Meloe (pl. 81, jig. 7), one of the elytra laps over the other at 
the base. 
The tribe Atrachelia have the head enlarged and deeply set; they are in 
general dark-colored, living in dark places, and running slowly upon the 
ground. A few of the families are bright-colored, and are found upon 
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