HETEROMEROUS BARK-BEETLES. 
119 
Family L. PYTIIID^E. 
Another small family containing less than a dozen North American 
species, the most remarkable of which belong to the genus Salpingus, 
which differs from all other Coleoptera except the Curculionidae, in hav- 
ing the head prolonged in front in the form of a snout, sometimes of 
considerable length. The two leading genera are Pytho, Latr., and 
Salpingus, Illiger. 
Family LI. CISTBLIDiE. 
This is a family of considerable extent, and some of the species are 
amongst our most common insects. They are smooth, oval beetles, of 
ring. 55.] moderate or rather small size, and are generally 
clothed with minute hairs, which give a silken gloss 
to the surface. Their most distinctive character is 
the pectinate or comb-toothed claws at the end of the 
tarsi. This, like most other minute characters, can 
be best seen by holding the insect up against the 
light of a window and examining it through a lens. 
This character is very rare in the Coleoptera, and 
therefore quite distinctive where it occurs. We have already seen it 
to exist in the genus Lebia and a few other Carabidse, and a modifica- 
tion of it occurs in the families Meloidic and Mordellidie. 
ClSTBLA:— 1, beotlo ; 2, 
tarsus ; 3, tarsal claw 
— after Westwood. 
Our most, common species of Cistelid® aro plain, brownish beetles 
without spots. Thirty-five species have been described, most of which 
are contained in the genera Cistcla * and Allecula of Fabricius; the 
former having merely simple tarsi and the latter having the anterior 
tarsi somewhat dilated, and all of them with the penultimate joint 
bilobed. 
fPig. 5fi.| 
Family LII. MELANDIiYIILE. 
The insects of this family were called Serropalpi 
by Latreille, to express their most remarkable char- 
acter : that of having the joints of the maxillary 
palpi — which are usually long and pendulous — more 
or less enlarged in the form of saw-teeth, the last 
Mklandrya 1, beetle; joint being the largest, and usually hatchet-shaped. 
2. liend of Seuhofalpus. t , . /? i . , , J „ 
snowing large si/.o, anti 1-t IS cl IStlllily 01 lllOUGrcltG GXtGIlt^ COlltcliliing forty - 
deflexed nature of tho n -vt a • rru , , , 
three terminal joints of HVO .N . A. SpGClGS. xllOy IlGYGr IUllcll CXCGCtl lltllf 
ter Westwood. 1 ' 11 ' 1 * 1 u ** an inch in length, and some are less than half that 
* This name — derived from the Greek kiste — a chest , appears to have been given originally by Geof- 
frey to the insects of the genus Byrrhus, Linn., to the short and thick bodies of which it was not in- 
applicable. But Liiiineus having given the namo Byrrhus to this genus, the name Cistela was trans- 
ferred by Fabricius to the present group of hoteromorous beetlos, whore it has now become established 
by general acceptance and long usage. 
