90 



INTRODUCTION. 



Penang, China, and Japan. The formation of the club of the 

 antennae will at once distinguish it from its allies ; it appears to 

 be a question whether it should be placed under the Htaphylinoidea 

 or the Clayicopnia. 



Family 24. SCAPHIDIID/E. 



Form more or less boat-shaped. with tire elytra broadly truncate, 

 and not covering the abdomen; antenna' 10- or W-jointed, slender, 

 with the five or six apical joints gradually thicker ; pronotum large 

 and fitting closely to the elytra; abdomen with sice, seven, or even 

 eight visible ventral segments; anterior coxa* contiguous ; posterior 

 coxos usually widely separated; legs slender, tarsi long, filiform, 

 d-jointed. 



The position of the family has been much disputed. Lacordaire 

 placed it between the TpichopterygiuvE and the HiSTERiDiE, 

 Thomson regards it as near the NrrTDFLiDA',and Leconte and Horn 

 as situated between the SpuiERiiDiE and 

 Phalacrieve. In the ' Biologia Centrali- 

 Americana'* (Coleopt. ii. 1, p. 158) Matthews 

 places it between the SpiiiERiiiLE and His- 

 tepidyE, and according to him its chief 

 characters are " the form of the anterior and 

 intermediate coxal cavities; the protrusion 

 of the wide pieces of the mesosternum beyond 

 the normal outline of the skeleton; and 

 (except in Scaphium) the reception of the 

 posterior angles of the thorax into grooves on 

 Fig. 43.— Scaphidium the epipleural fold of the elytra. The anterior 

 nigrocinctulum, coxal cavities are formed on their upper half 

 by the prosternum and on their lower half by 

 the mesosternum (a character found also in Ephistemus), and the 

 intermediate coxal cavities extend in a similar manner into the 

 metasternum." 



The members of the family in both the larval and the perfect 

 state live in fungi. In the Munich Catalogue only fifty-one species 

 are mentioned, but about 200 are now known. Scaphidium and 

 Scap>hisoma are represented in India and Ceylon. They are very 

 rapid in their movements ; the species of Scaphidium are often 

 very brilliantly variegated with scarlet or yellow ; the species of 

 Scaphisoma are smaller, more sombrely coloured, and much more 

 delicate insects. 



The larva of Scaphisoma agaricinum has been described by Perris : 

 it is of the Staph vlinid type, with long hairs at the sides, with a 

 very short anal appendage or proleg, and very short cerci. 



