OCR Text |
Show 462 INSECTA. and all the joints of the tarsi are entire, and terminated by single hooks; the anterior tibiro are frequently broad and triangular. Several males have the head furnished with horns. Most of them inhabit the fungi on trees, or under the bark. some live on the ground, under stones. ' M. Leon .Dufour has observed in certain subgenera of this family, such as Hypophlrou~, Diaperis proper, Eledona or Boletophagus, an excrementitious apparatllil, and in the second salivary vessels. The chylific ventricle of these Heteromera is bristled with little pili form papillre. These characters, and the conformation of the organs of generation, point out the connexion between this and the preceding family(!). In some, the head is completely exposed, and never entirely received into a deep notch in the anterior of the thorax. This last is sometimes trapezoidal or square, and at others almost cylindrical ; its sides, as well as those of the elytra, do not extend remarkably beyond the body. This division will form the tribe of the DIAPERIALEs, the type of which is the genus DlAPERIS. Sometimes the antennre are generally stout, almost straight, and mostly perfoliate, or terminated abruptly by a thick club. The body is smooth, or the elytra are lightly striated. The sides of the tho· rax have but a slight border, and are neither depressed nor dentated; there is no remarkable separation nor hiatus between its posterior angles and the base of the elytra. The two anterior legs are trian· gular, and dilated exteriorly at the extremity, in a great number. Here the antennre enlarge insensibly, or at least are not abruptly terminated by an oval or ovoid club, of which most of the joints are larger than the preceding ones. In some, and the greater number, the body is oval or ovoid, some· times even hemispherical, with the thorax either uearly square or trapezoidal, most frequently transversal, but never long and narrow. ( 1) It is the same with the following one. The transition from Tenebrio to Phaleria and Ilelops, is almost insensible, and consequently the characters of these families, in some cases, arc ambiguous. COLEOPTEHA. 463 PHALERIA, Lat.-Uloma, P!taleria, Dej. The last joint of the maxillary palpi la1·ger and securiform, or like a reversed triangle; anterior tibice wider, dilated in the manner f a reversed triangle, and frequently dentated, or furnished with ~mall spines on one of its sides( 1 ). In DIAPERis, Geoff. Fah. Or Diaperis properly so called, the maxillary palpi terminate in an almost cylindrical joint, hardly thicker than the penultimate; and the anterior tibire, hardly or not at all wider than the following ones, are narrow, almost linear, and slightly dilated at the extremity. Among those species where the body is ovoid and convex, the thorax is lobate posterior·ly, and the antennre are thick and almost entirely perfoliate, comes the D. boleti; Chrysomela boleti, L., Oliv., Col., III, 55, 1, whose body is about three lines long, of a glossy black, with three fulvous-yellow, transverse and dentated bands on the elytra.-In the fungi of trees. Another more elongated species, placed among the Ips by Fabricius-hremorrhoidalis-forms the genus Neomida of Ziegler. The head of the male is armed with two horns(2). (1) Some by their elongated form approach Tenebrio. The intermediate joints of the antenna: are almost obconical, and the four last compose a perfoliate club. The head of the males is horned. M. Dalmar has figured a species of this division- Phaleriafurcifera, Analect. Entom., IV. M. Fischer-Entomog. Imp. Russ., II, nii, 3-has figured another. The Trogosita: taurus, quadricqrnis, vacca of Fabricius belong to this division. Others have the body oval and depressed; and the antenna: very perfoliatesuch are the Tenebriones culinaris, retusus, cltrysomelinua, impressus, nitidulm of that author. The species of these two divisions form the genus Uloma, Meg. and D ~j. Those, in which the body is shorter and more rounded, in the form of 11. short ellipsis, or even hemispherical, and in which the six or seven last joints of the antenna: are almost globular, constitute the Pltaleria, Dej. The Tenebrio cadaverinua, Fab., is of this number. A species-bicolor-from the Cape of Good Hope, belonging to this division, is distinguished from the preceding ones by the maxillary palpi, which are terminated by a proportionally larger sccuriformjoint, and by its antenna:, of which the four last joints are alone globular. Another-peltaides-approaches Peltis and Cossyphus, Fab., in its flattened form. Its antenna: are hardly perfoliate; most of the joints, and even the last, being in the form of a reversed cone. . (2) The Trogositce cornuta, and maxillo3a of Fabricius, on accoim~ of the difference in the mandibles presented in the two sexes, might be formed mto a sepa~ |