VI PREFACE. 



then meet with most of the descriptions he re- 

 quires in several excellent foreign works, hut the 

 expense of procuring these is considerahle. 



In the ahsence of any attempt to provide a 

 remedy for this state of things on the part of 

 those more qualified to do so than myself, I have 

 judged it well to collect from trustworthy sources 

 short descriptions of all the species of British 

 Beetles at present known, and in order to facili- 

 tate as much as possihlc their determination I 

 have in the following pages divided and suT)- 

 divided each group, family and genus under some 

 prominent character. 



It may he necessary to say a few words ahout 

 the systematic arrangement I have adopted. 

 It was at one time customary to divide the 

 Coleoptera into groups superior to families, the 

 most generally received system being that de- 

 pendent upon the number of joints in the tarsi, 

 the order being divided into Pentamera, Tetra- 

 mera and Trimera (in which the tarsi had gene- 

 rally five, four and three joints respectively), and 

 Heteromera, in which the front pairs of tarsi had 



