42 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



anopluriform larvfe ; whilst the latter and Coccinella (Mr. MacLeay's 

 two examples of the Anopluriform stirps), although agreeing in the 

 larvae, are totally different in the habits and in the structure of the 

 tarsi of the imago. 



For these and other reasons which want of space prevents me 

 from here detailing, but which I have embodied in a paper read 

 before the Entomological Society, I have not considered it advisable 

 in this work to adopt Mr. MacLeay's views until they shall be more 

 fully developed *, and shall therefore follow (with proper restrictions 



* Mr. Stephens has endeavoured to adopt MacLeay's views in the distribulion 

 of the Coleoptera {Catalogue of Brit. Ins. p. viii. ), and it cannot be denied 

 that some of the relations thus elucidated are very strong affinities ; others, however, 

 appear equally slight, not being more than distant analogies. It is to be regretted, 

 that want of space has prevented him in his Illustrations from developing his own 

 views so fully as could have been wished. I need not do more than mention the 

 classifications proposed by Mr. Newman (Ent. Mag. No. 9.), and by M. Laporte 

 (Etudes Ent. No I.), these authors not having thought fit to detail the principles 

 upon which their classifications (which certainly do not appear to be very consistent 

 with nature) are founded. Mr. Kirby, however, in his Fauna Boreali- Americana 

 (published subsequently to the preparation of the following pages relative to the 

 Coleoptera), has proposed various important modifications in the general classifi- 

 cation of the order, founded upon and accompanied by observations of their affinities, 

 and of which it will be useful in this place to give a slight review. Many of these 

 arc of too great value to be overlooked ; but not a few appear to me to be un- 

 founded in nature. Rejecting the Tarsal System of' Latreille, by a too great reliance 

 whereon " groups evidently nearly related are scattered far and wide through his 

 various sections," and also that of Mr. MacLeay, which he considers impossible 

 to adopt through the "mazy lahyri.nth " of nature, he regards it as impossible 

 " either to conceive or delineate it so as to maintain all its connections undisturbed 

 and unbroken. We must do it in a series, which can only be a series of mutilations 

 and dislocations." (Pref. p. xxiii. — xxv.) 



Commencing with Cicindela, and passing through the remainder of the Adephaga 

 (Carabus, Dyticus, and Gyrinus Linn.), he next enters into various anatomical 

 arguments relative to the respective relations of the Braclielytra with the Adephaga 

 (Latreille's method, but rejecting Latreille's location of the Buprestidee, &c. ), and of 

 the Philhydrida with the same group (MacLeay's method), from which he con- 

 siders that the Brachclytra by means of Lesteva (analogous to Lebia), and Stenus 

 (analogous to Cicindela), are intermediate between the terrestrial Adephaga and 

 the Necrophaga, whence he passes to the Philj^drida, which bear a stronger relation 

 to the aquatic Adephaga, and thus a circular distribution of these groups is com- 

 pleted. In this distribution the groups Geodephaga and Hydradephaga are made 

 subsections, whilst the genus Necrophorus is raised to the rank of a section, 

 equivalent to the Adephaga, Brachelytra, &c., imder the name of Entaphia, a step 

 surely not adviseable. The Byrrhidae are introduced amongst the Necrophaga, 

 and it is-from this group that we are instructed to approach the Lamellicorn beetles 

 by means of the Histeridae. The Sphaeridiida; are also regarded as another transition 



