NECROPHAGA AND THEIR ALLIES. 
137 
little before the eyes, the club being three-jointed in 
Lathridius and Corticciria, and two-jointed in Holo- 
paramecus ; the latter is also noteworthy on account 
of the variation of the number of joints — from nine to 
eleven — in the antennae of certain of its species, of 
which we possess two, which are very rare, and 
probably introduced from abroad. 
Their femora are clavate, and tibiae slender and 
wiry, with obsolete apical spurs ; their meutum more 
or less hexagonal, their labial palpi apparently bi- 
articulate, the third joint being soldered to the 
second, which is inflated ; their mandibles bifid at the 
apex (sometimes very minutely so), and their maxillae 
bilobed, but with the outer lobe obsolete ; the tarsi 
are three-jointed. 
Our species of Lathridius are found in refuse heaps, 
dry wood, &c., the largest, L. lardarius (Plate XVI., 
Pig. 3), occurring plentifully in grassy places in some 
of the midland counties. It received its unsugges- 
tive specific name on account of having been reared 
by its discoverer from larvae found in a dry pig’s 
bladder ; and many similar instances of inappropriate 
naming occur, through insects having been observed 
for the first time under accidental circumstances. 
Another species, L. nodifer, much smaller, dull 
black, with little humps on its elytra, is now very 
common in cut grass, rubbish heaps, &c., all over 
the south and midland parts of the country, though 
unknown some few years ago. When quite fresh it 
has a thin white membrane on each side of its thorax, 
somewhat like the pellicle filling up the marginal 
notch in the same part of Ochthebius. 
In this genus the body is never pubescent, or the 
