THE CERAMBYCID^. 325 



and the diversity in the structure of their mouths depends upon 

 the nature of the vegetable matters upon which they feed. The 

 species are world-wide, but their abundance is in distinct relation 

 with the richness of the vegetation of different countries, so that 

 South America, India, Ceylon, and the Islands of Sunda, and 

 the Moluccas contain a great number of the most beautiful and 

 largest Capricorns. It is impossible to confound a beetle be- 

 longing to this family with that of any other. There is the 

 greatest resemblance amongst the larvae of the whole family, 

 and they look like stoat elongated white worms, and the segments 

 of their bodies are very much alike in all. All the segments are 

 a little swollen, the first, however, being the largest, and being 

 covered above and below with a leathery plate. They have rudi- 

 mentary antennae. These larvae live in the trunks and branches 

 of trees, and in the cellular structures of some herbaceous plants. 

 As they never come to the light they are colourless, and have 

 soft integuments, but as they feed upon the wood out of which 

 they form galleries, they have very strong jaws and a very stout 

 head. As they do not want to walk much in a narrow gallery, 

 they have no legs, or else they are in a most rudimentary con- 

 dition, but their swollen segments enable them to climb. This 

 history of the peculiar structures of the larva presents striking 

 analogies with that of the wood-eating larvae of the Lepidoptera 

 and Hymenoptera ; and the existence of similar adaptations in 

 very different insects in order to enable them to live under the 

 same conditions of existence is very remarkable. But the weak 

 jaws of Chalcophora Mariana, which are presumed to do the same 

 kind of work as those of the Cerambycidcz, must be remembered 

 in considering such generalisations. The strength of the jaws of 

 the larvae of the Cerambycidce differs according to the density 

 of the tissue of the plant in which the particular species live. 

 The abdomen of the female beetles of some genera is provided 

 with an ovipositor of considerable length, by means of which 

 they can insert their eggs into the crevices of trees or plants, in 

 the interior of which their larvae live and are hatched. The 

 larvae make a cocoon by joining together fragments of wood and 

 little bits of vegetable tissue with their saliva, and are trans- 

 formed into nymphs. Some of the beetles are remarkable for 



