180 
BRITISH BEETLES. 
seeming to be split at the apex. In the latter the 
tibiae, also, are straighter, more slender, and with only 
obsolete spurs. 
The species of Malthinus and Malthodes have very 
long slender antennae, and short elytra, scarcely cover- 
ing two-thirds of the abdomen. They are small, very 
fragile, and are most easily obtained by sweeping 
under fir-trees. In the former genus the elytra are 
longer, and the mandibles have a strong tooth near 
the apex, which is wanting in the latter. 
The Melyrid/E have the clypeus separated by a 
suture from the forehead (a structure, however, not 
very evident in the British species) ; the labruin dis- 
tinct ; the abdomen composed of six segments ; the 
spurs of the tibiae obsolete or absent ; and the tarsi 
not bilobed. In the Malachiina (wherein the antennae, 
contrary to the prevailing structure of the family, are 
inserted in the front, instead of at the sides, of the 
head), containing the genera Malachius, Axinotarsus, 
and Antlwcomus, there are certain retractile vesicles 
to the prothorax and abdomen, which in some of the 
small green metallic species of the former genus 
assume the appearance of the wattles of a cock. 
Their larvae are carnivorous, living under bark, and 
in dry rotten wood, where they feed upon other larvae, 
&c. 
The Dasytina are mostly slender and elongate 
hairy insects with antennae usually plainly serrate, 
and the Phlotiophilina are distinguished by having 
the antennae moniliform with the three apical joints 
larger ; the latter tribe contains the single genus 
Phlceophilus, which has been by many authors consi- 
dered as allied to Mycetophagus and Triphyllus. The 
