40 THE ORDER OF COLEOPTERA.. 



subsist mostly upou succulent roots, and upon the pith and stems of 

 grasses. 



The larvie are active grubs, of an elongated form, with sharp, project- 

 ing mandibles, and usually furnislied at the hind extremity with a i)air 

 of conical, bristly appendages. They live in the same obscure situations 

 as the parent insects, but are still more retiring, and are seldom seen. 

 They are very intolerant of confinement, and however well cared for, 

 they rarely live long enough to complete their transformations. 



The Oarabidoe constitute a very difiBcult study, on account of their 

 great numbers and the general uniformity of their coloring ; and what 

 adds much to this difficulty is, that some of the most valuable charac- 

 ters used in their classification are peculiar to the male sex, and there- 

 fore afford us no aid, if the sijecimen in hand happens to be a female. 

 Nothing but the familiarity which is the result of long experience in the 

 study of these insects, can enable the student to recognize the slight 

 modifications of form by which the minor divisions are characterized. 



Authors have differed much in tbe ])rincipal divisions which they have 

 made in this family, accordingly as they have assumed one or another 

 class of characters to be of primary importance. Linnaeus united all the 

 species which he knew in the single genus Carahus. Fabricius, and 

 others of the earlier authors, established many new genera, and Latreille 

 combined and systematized them in the Genera Crustaceorum et Insecto- 

 rum, and subsequently in the Regne Animal. This author divides the 

 Oarabid;iB into seven sections, based upon the forms of the elytra, feet 

 and paljii. Lacordaire, in his great work ujjon the Genera des Coleopteres, 

 following the method of Erichson, divides the family primarily into two 

 legions, founded upon the peculiarities of the tibite and of the epimera 

 of the metathorax; and these legiohs he subsequently divides into ten 

 sections, corresponding, in the main, with the sections of Latreille, with 

 three additional ones, to receive certain anomalous forms. Dr. J. L. Le- 

 Oonte, the learned Coleopterist of our own country, originally divided 

 these insects, in his !Notes upon the classification of the Carabidiie, pub- 

 lished in the tenth volume of the Transactions of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society, 1853, into three sub-families, founded upon the number 

 of abdominal segments and the form of the epimera of the mesothorax. 

 In his later work upon the classification of tlie Culeoptera of N. America, 

 (1800,) he abandons the number of abdominal segments as of primary 

 value, and divides the family into three subfamilies, based upon the 

 form of the epimera of the mesothorax, and the relative position of the 

 intermediate coxjie. 



Selecting from all these sources the characters which seem to be best 

 adapted to our purpose, we will divide the Oarabidie iuto six sub-families, 

 as follows: 



