T9E IIETEEOMERA. 
227 
sometimes resemble certain of the Dermestidse ; they 
are black in colour, and are probably imported, being 
found in warehouses, &c., where their larvae feed in 
flour, &c. 
The Helopina are in England ouly represented by 
a single genus, Ilelops, in which the inner lobe of the 
maxillae has no hook, the antennae are slender, elon- 
gate, with their penultimate joints longer than their 
width, and the eyes transverse and narrow. Our 
species present a certain superficial resemblance in 
miniature to the form of Blaps, and this is most 
shown in H. cxruleus, the largest of them, a slowly- 
moving beetle, dull blue in colour, sometimes found in 
clusters under the bark of old felled trees, where its 
larva (which considerably resembles that of Tenebrio, 
and has spines on the apical segment) feeds on rotten 
wood. H. striatus, by far the most common, is abun- 
dant in woods, &c., in tufts of grass at the roots of 
trees, under bark, in rotten wood, moss, &c. ; its larva 
is the only one of the genus which has been noticed to 
possess ocelli. Another species, H. pallidus (Plato X., 
Fig. 3), is found at the roots of grass, &c., in sandy 
places on the south coast (Southend, &c.), often much 
below the surface. In all these the males are not so 
robust as the females, with longer antenna;, and the 
basal joints of the front and middle tarsi more dilated. 
The IjAGiuiDiE are here only represented by one 
genus and species, Lagria hirta, an insect utterly 
unlike any of its allies, being very hairy, with a narrow 
thorax, a neck to the head, long black antennas and 
legs, and somewhat inflated elytra, which are widest 
and shortest in the female. It is very soft and slug- 
gish, black, with yellowish elytra, and abounds towards 
Q 2 
