PARASITIC-BEETLES. 
Ill 
of the second division are so intimately connected by intermediate 
grades, that Laconlaire aud other recent authors have united a large 
proportion of them in one large family under the name of Tenebrionidce. 
In accordance with our plan of classifying insects as nearly as possi- 
ble according to their habits and the nature of their food, we will divide 
the Ileteromera into four tribes, as follows: 
A. Head as wide as the thorax, and attached to it by a visible neck. 
Body rather soft and elytra flexible ; anterior coxa: large, coni- 
cal and contiguous; colors often diversified. Larva: mostly car- 
nivorous and many of them parasitic: 
Tribe 1st (or 12th), Parasitic beetles. 
A A. Head without a distinct neck, narrower than the the thorax, and 
more or less inserted in it ; body firm ; coxa; never very prom- 
inent; colors usually black or brown; habits never carnivorous. 
B. Anterior coxa: moderately prominent aud nearly or quite contig- 
uous; antenna} slender aud filiform ; color usually brown, some- 
times black. Larvae live under bark of decayed trees : 
Tribe 2d (or 13th.) Bark beetles. 
B B. Anterior coxa: small, depressed aud separate ; antenna: usually 
moniliform, or sub-clavate and perfoliate. 
(J. Antennae usually more or less moniliform, and often a little 
thickened towards the tip, and as long as the head and tho- 
rax. Color almost always black ; habits terrestrial : 
Tribe 3d (or 14th.) Heteromerous ground-beetles. 
0 C. Antennae usually shorter than the head and thorax, and 
strongly clavate and perfoliate ; head of males often with 
two horns. Colors brown or dark metallic, sometimes 
black with red spots. Habits fungivorous : 
Tribe 4th (or 5th.) Heteromerous fungus-beetles. 
Tamil xn. 
PA R A SIT I C - BEETLES. 
Heteromera parasitica,. Trachelides, Latrcille. 
The name Trachelides, from a Greek word meaning a neck, was given 
to these insects by Latreille to express their most striking character, 
that ot having the head attached to the thorax by a visible neck ; where- 
as in most beetles the head is inserted in the thorax nearly or quite to 
the eyes. The exceptions to this rule, however, in the Coleopterous 
order, are not very uncommon, of which the families of Telephoridie, 
Lopturida*., and portions of the Carabidse, are some of the most conspic- 
uous examples. But the name was intended to contrast them more par- 
ticularly with the other beetles of the heteromerous section. 
