OF GENERATION. 319 



lew divarications from the usual course will be appended, and we now 

 proceed with the subject. 



With respect to the differences of the sexes, their whole character 

 may be thus distinguished, viz., that the male displays itself by the 

 preponderance of evolution and the female by the predominance of 

 involution. This difference is expressed as forcibly throughout the 

 whole corporeal structure, as in the individual organs, so that in general 

 the mere view of an individual will determine its sex ; but it carries 

 greater conviction to inspect the sexual organs, the differences of which 

 we have fully shown above ( 142 and 152). Independent of this 

 character expressed in the structure of the entire body, we find in many 

 insects, particularly those of the male sex, peculiar organs restricted 

 to one sex only, and which likewise indicate the sexual character. 

 Whence it is sometimes difficult, as well on account of the frequently 

 vast discrepancy of form, and even more of colour, and chieHy in exotic 

 insects, which we have not observed alive, to bring together the sexes 

 of a species, and recently only, since the vast increase of species has 

 proved the necessity of their reduction, greater attention has been paid 

 to sexual differences ; and Von Malinowsky * and King f in particular 

 have earned well-merited praise for separate treatises upon this 

 subject. 



If we more closely inspect these sexual differences in the several 

 orders, we find, to begin with the Coleoptera, the above mentioned 

 characteristic everywhere expressed. The body of the female is always 

 thicker, larger, more succinct, frequently more convex ; that of the 

 male, on the contrary, more slender, smaller, more delicately formed, 

 and furnished with longer limbs- Besides these general differences^ the 

 several families exhibit peculiar characters. In all male Cicinddce, 

 Caraludea, Dylici, the males have distended anterior tarsi. The 

 number of these distended joints varies in the several families and 

 genera. In Cicindcla the three first joints only of the anterior legs 

 are distended. In the Carabodca an increasing number is found in 

 the distension of the tarsi ; in many genera, for example, Agra and 

 other exotic ones, the tarsi of all the six legs are distended ; in others, 

 for example, Harpalus and its affinities, the tarsi of the four anterior 

 ones; in others again, for example, Carabus and its affinities, as well 



* Neue Schriften dcr Hallisch. Naturf. Gesellscli. vol.i. PL VI. 



f Magaz. der Gesellsch. Naturf. Freumle zu Berlin, 1807, p. G5, and 1808. ;j. 48. 



