510 
INSECTA. 
These insects are found upon flowers and plants, or on the ground ; they depress the head Avhilst 
creeping along, and fall to the ground when alarmed, applying the feet to the outside of the body, [which 
has particular impressions for their reception]. 
De Geer describes the larva of one of the species, E. undulatus : it is long, nearly cylindrical ; furnished 
with short antennae, palpi, six feet, twelve scaly segments, the last of which forms a flattened rounded 
plate, angular at the sides, with two recurved points at the end ; beneath is a large fleshy retractile 
lobe, which performs the office of a foot. It lives in soft rotten wood and in the ground. It appears, 
also, that the larva of E. striatus, Fab., devours the roots of corn, and often does much injury where it 
propagates extensively. [The Wire-worm, so well and objectionably known to the English farmer, is 
the larva of one of the commonest of our species, Elater {Cataphagus) sputator, 
which is probably but a variety of the E. lineatus, mentioned above ; this larva is 
much more slender than that described by De Geer, and has the terminal segment of 
the body entire and long, (resembling, in fact, a bit of wire,) with two dark points 
at the base above.] 
Fijr. 5 s.— Elater sputator We may refer the different subgenera which have been formed in this tribe to two principal 
and its larva. divisious ; tliose in which the antenme are entirely lodged in the canals on the under-side 
of the prothorax compose the first. 
Galha, Latr., (having the mandibles terminated in a simple point), and 
Eucne.'.nis, Arh., (in which they are bifid at the tip), have the antennae received on each side of the prosternum 
in a longitudinal canal close to the lateral margins of the thorax, and the basal joints of the tarsi are always without 
elongated lobes beneath. (See the monograph of the last genus, by Count Mannerheim.) 
Addocera, Latr., has filiform antennae ; the tarsal joints have no elongated lobes, and the two fore-legs are lodged 
in repose in lateral impressions on the under-side of the thorax. Elater ovalis^ and others from East India. 
Lissomus, Dalm. (Lu'sodes, Latr., Drapetes, Meg.), has also the antennas of equal size throughout ; tarsal joints 
entire, but with the lobes on their under edges advanced like small plates ; the head is exposed. See Dalman, 
Ephem. Ent. 
Chelonariiim, Fab., has the seven terminal joints of the antennas minute, and the body ovoid. [Exotic insects of 
small size.] 
Throscus, Latr. {Trixagus, Kug.), has the antennae terminated by a three-jointed mass, and lodged in a cavity on 
the under-side of the thorax ; the penultimate joint of the tarsi is bifid, and the mandibles are entire at the tip. 
Type, Elater dennestoides, Linn., Dermestes adsMctor, Fab. [a rare British insect, of minute size and dull 
brown colour, but especially interesting on account of its relations, being considered by some authors as allied to 
the Dermestidae from the structure of its antennae. Its larva, according to Latreille, feeds upon the wood of 
the oak]. 
Our second division of this tribe comprises those species which have the antennae always free. 
Cerophgtum, Latr., has the four basal joints of the tarsi short and triangular, and the penultimate joint bifid : 
the antennae of the males are branched. 
All the other genera have the joints of the tarsi cylindrical and entire. 
Crgpiostoma, Dej., has the inner terminal angle of the third and seven following joints of the antennae, prolonged 
into a tooth with a straight branch at the base of the third joint. Elater denticornis. Fab., Cayenne. 
Nematodes, Latr., has the body nearly linear, and the antennae have the second and four following joints reverse- 
conic, and the five terminal joints thicker and nearly perfoliated. Eucnemis filuni, Mann. 
Heinirliipus, Latr., has the male antenn® terminated like a fan. These are exotic [and of large size]. Elater 
ftahellicornls, Fabr. 
Ctenicerus, Latr., has the male antennae pectinated throughout their whole length. Elater pectinicornis, 
Latr., [a common British species]. 
Elater proper, has the male antennae simply serrated. Elater noctilucus, Linn., South America, — about an inch 
long ; of a dark brown colour, with two pale dots on the thorax, which emit a very strong light during the night, 
sufficient to enable a person to read the smallest writing, especially when several of the insects are placed together. 
The Indian women ornament their head-dresses with these insects. Brown asserts that all the inner parts of the 
insect are luminous, and that it can suspend its light at will ; but M. Lacordaire informs me that the principal 
reservoir of the phosphorescent matter is situated on the under-side, at the junction of the abdomen with the 
thorax. One of these insects, which had been carried in wood to Paris, in the larva state, caused great alarm to 
the inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Antoine, who were ignorant of the cause of the light. 
Campylus, Fischer, Exopthalmiis, Latr., differs from all the preceding in having the head free, and the eyes large 
and globular ; the body is long and linear. Elater linearis, Linn. 
Phyllocerus, Latr., is distinguished by having the palpi filiform [not clavate], and antennae pectinated after the 
fourih joint. {P.flavipennis, south of Europe, figured by Guerin in his Iconographie.] 
[The family Elateridae, on account of the general uniformity of their appearance and dullness of their colours, 
have only recently any attention in respect to their structural distribution into genera and subgenera. Dr. 
Eschscholtz, however, in the second volume of Thon's Entomologische Archiv.-, Latreille, in the Annals of the 
Entomological Society of France for 1834, and still more recently, Di-. Germar, in the second number of his 
