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COLEOPTERA OP THE LIVERPOOL DISTRICT, 



By JOHN W. ELLIS, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.E., 



Liverpool \ Hon. Sec. Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society. 



PART V. 

 CliAVICOElsriA. 



(Read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society, November 24th, 1S84.) 



The Clavicornia are so called from the antennae in nearly all the 

 species being terminated with a distinct knob composed of several 

 joints (as in the genus Meligethes), or of a single (as in Rhizophagus), 

 two, three (as in Cryptophagus\ four, or five [Choleva) larger joints 

 forming a loose but more or less distinct club. From the natural 

 habits of many of the species, the group is often known as the 

 Necrophaga (feeders on dead animal matter); but this name is only 

 applicable to a certain, and that not large, section of the group, while 

 a much greater number of species live in decaying vegetable matters, 

 under bark, or revel in flowers, the bloom of the hawthorn being an 

 especial favourite with these latter. 



In Part IV. I referred to the Brachelytra as representing, on 

 account of the minute size of many of the species, the Tineina among 

 the Lepidoptera ; and I may again use a like comparison between 

 many of the Clavicornia (especially the family TTichopterygidce) and the 

 genus Nepticula among the Tineina, for, while there are few in the 

 family but could fall into a moderate-sized pinhole, some are so 

 minute as to measure {Nephanes Titan, e.g.) only the one-fourth of a 

 line or the one-forty-eighth part of an inch in length. Like the small 

 Brachelytra, very few collectors take the trouble to collect or set 

 these extremely interesting 'atoms,' and many of them, probably on 

 this account, are considered extremely scarce. 



Nothwithstanding the newer and, to my mind, more scientific 

 arrangement of the Clavicornia in the recent catalogue of British 

 beetles by Revs. W. W. Fowler and A. Matthews, in which the group 

 is divided and the Brachelytra intercalated between the two divisions, 

 I have followed the arrangement of the older catalogue of Dr. Sharp, 

 in order to avoid any collision between the already published parts 

 of this work and what may be yet forthcoming. 



^I have again to thank the Rev. W. W. Fowler for his kindness in 

 identifying and confirming scarce or doubtful species, and I have also 

 again to acknowledge the assistance I have received in recording 

 both species and localities from the diary of Mr. F. Archer, and 

 from Messrs. J. H. Smedley and R. Wilding. Much more informa- 

 tion as to our local species of this group might have been forthcoming 



May 1885. 



