132 
BRITISH BEETLES. 
the head and first segment, which are harder and 
darker; the legs, antennae, and palpi are short, and the 
mandibles sickle-shaped and prominent ; there appear, 
also, to be various impressions and transverse rows of 
hairs on the ventral segments, with a fleshy tubercle 
on the under side of the apex. 
M. de Marseul has published an admirable mono- 
graph of this family in the Annales of the French 
Ent. Soc. (ser. 3, i. p. 131 et seq.), and Herr Schmidt 
has tabulated and described the European species in 
the Bestimmungs-Tabellen der Eui’opaischen Coleop- 
teren XI Y. (Berlin, 1885). 
The Nitidulims have the head (except in Rhizo- 
; phagus ) much sunk in the thorax ; the antennas not 
elbowed; composed of eleven (in Rhizophagus appa- 
rently ten) joints, of which the two or three last form 
a knob; the tarsi, with five joints (rarely with only 
four to the posterior in the male), of which the last 
but one is very small ; the elytra usually truncate 
behind, and the abdomen with five or six segments 
free. The species are mostly small, flat, and rather 
wide, a few being convex, and one genus ( Rhizo - 
phagus) linear. They chiefly frequent flowers, but 
dead animals, sap of trees, fungi, decaying vegetable 
matter, and ants’ nests are also haunted by many 
species. They may be divided into six sub-families, — 
the Brachypterina, Ga/rpophilina, Nitidulina, Cychra- 
mina , Ipina, and Rhizophagina. 
The Brachypterina have the two or three apical 
segments of the abdomen exposed, and two lobes to 
the maxillae. Our species occur in the flowers of 
Antirrhinum, Spiraea, &c., and are in no way 
remarkable, except that the male of Cercus pedicu- 
