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Show 358 INSECTA. ous and furnished with stout mandibles: There is a mammill under the twelfth and lasf. annul•u s which it uses in crawlin ga. It is carnivorous and inhabtts motst earth. During the winter of certain years in Sweden, and even in the mountainous parts of France these larv<e and various other species of living Insects have been observed among the snow in such abundance as to cover a considerable space. It has been very rationally supposed that they had been &wept away and deposited the1·e by those violent gusts of wind which uproot and destroy great numbers of tl'ees, particularly Pines and Firs. Such is the origin of what is termed a shower of in. sects. The species then met with are probably such as appear early in the spring. T. lividus; Cantharislivida, L.; Oliv., lb., II, 28. Size and form of the preceding; thorax fuscous and immaculp.te; elytra yellowish; extremity of t~e posterior thighs black. On flow. ers( 1 ). S1us, Meg. Dej. Charp. This subgenus only differs from Telephorus in the thorax, which is emarginated posteriorly on each side, and has underneath-at least in the S. spinicollis-a little coriaceous appendage terminated by a club, whose extremity, probably m<?re membranous, in the dried specimen has the appearance of . a joint. A species, the ru. bricollis, is figured by M. Toussaint de Charpentier in his Hor. fn· tom., p. 194, 195, vi, 7. MALTHINus, Lat., Schren.-Necydalis, Geoff. The pal pi terminated by an ovoid joint; head narrow behind; elytra, in several, shorter than the abdomen. On flowers, and particularly on trees(2). In the third tribe of the Malacodermi, or the MELYRIDEs, we find the palpi most commonly short and filiform; mandi· bles emarginated at the point; the body usual1y narrow and elongated; the head only covered at base by a flat or but slightly convex thorax, generally square, or elongated and (1) For the other species, see Schamherr, Synon. Insect., II, p. 60, and Panz., Ind. En tom., p. 91. (2) Lat., Gen. Crust. et Insect., I, 261; Schamh.1 Id. II, p. 73; Panz., Id., p.73. The Teleph. bigt,ttatu8 and minimtJ.a of Olivier belong to this genus. 1 COLEOPTERA. 359 uadrilateral ; joints of the tarsi entire, and the hooks of the ~stone unidentated or bordered with a membrane. The ant: nnro are usually serrated, and, in the. males of some species, even pectinated. Most of them are v~ry active, and are found on fio,wers and ]eaves. This tribe, which is a mere division of the genera Cantha-ris and Dermestes of Linnrous, will form the genus MEL YRIS, Fa b. In some, the palpi are of equal thickness throughout. Here, under each anterior angle of the thorax, and on each side of the base of the abdomen, we observe a retractile, dilatable vesicle in theforrn of a cockade, which is protruded by the animal when alarmed, and whose use is unknown. The body is shorter in proportion than in the following subgenus, wider and more depressed; the thorax wider than it is long. Under each crotchet, at the end of the tarsi, is a membranous appendage resembling a tooth. MALAOHius, Fab. Oliv.-Cantharis, Lin. Oneofthe sexes, in each species, furnished with an appendage in theform of a hook, at the extremity of each elytron, which is seized from behind by an individual of the opposite sex, with its mandibles, in order to arrest the former when it attempts to escape, or moves too rapidly. The first joints of the antennre are frequently dilated and irregular in the males. They are all prettily coloured. M. ameus; Canthar·is cenea, L.; Panz., lb.; X, 2. Three lines in length; glossy green; margin of the elytra red; head, yellow anteriorly. M. bipustulatus; Cantharis bipustulata, L.; Panz. lb., 3. · Rather smaller, and of a glossy green; extremity of the elytra red(l ). Among the following Melyrides with filiform palpi, and whose thora-x and abdomen are destitute of retractile vesicles, we will fi1·st place those the length of whose antennre at least equals that of the head and thorax, in which the body is generally straight, elongated, and sometimes linear, and the hooks of the tarsi are usually, as in Malachius, bordered inferiorly by a membranous appendage. · (1) See op. cit. and Schamh., Synon. Insect., II, p. tS7. |