FAM. 36. EROTYLIDAE.—_Tarsi five-jointed, but with the fourth usually very small, the first three more or less broad and pubescent beneath. Antennae strongly clubbed. Front and middle coxal acetabula round, without angular prolongation externally; five visible ventral segments._ This is now a large and important family of about 1800 species, but it is chiefly exotic and tropical, its members haunting the fungoid growths {237}in forests. We have only six species in Britain, and the whole of Europe has only about two dozen, most of them insignificant (and in the case of the Dacnides aberrant, approaching the Cryptophagidae very closely). The sub-family Languriides (quite wanting in Europe) consists of more elongate Insects, with front acetabula open behind; they have different habits from Erotylides proper; some are known to live as larvae in the stems of herbaceous plants. They possess a highly developed stridulating organ on the front of the head. The Clavicorn Polymorpha are very closely connected with the Phytophaga by Languriides. FAM. 37. MYCETOPHAGIDAE.—_Tarsi four-jointed, slender, the front feet of the male only three-jointed; coxae oval, not deeply embedded; abdomen with five ventral segments, all movable._ A small family, of interest chiefly because of the anomaly in the feet of the two sexes, for which it is impossible to assign any reason. The species are small, uninteresting Insects that live chiefly on Cryptogams of various kinds, especially in connection with timber; the larvae being also found there. There are about a dozen species in Britain, and scarcely 100 are described from all the world. The Diphyllides, placed by Leconte and Horn in this family, seem to go better in Cryptophagidae. [Illustration: Fig. 118—_Litargus bifasciatus._ Mycetophagidae. Britain. A, Larva (after Perris); B, perfect Insect.]