60 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS. 



prevented from falling beneath the power of the insects which 

 they attack; most of the species of this family being eminently 

 insectivorous, prowling about on the surface of the ground, under 

 stones, &c., or beneath the bark of trees, or in the moss growing at 

 the roots of the latter, in search of their prey, which consists of larvae, 

 or of herbivorous beetles and other insects, sometimes even attacking 

 their own species. Latreille in like manner informs us (^Histoire 

 Generale, &c., vol. viii. p. 374-.), that the Scarites gigas burrows into 

 the earth under cow-dung in sandy places by the assistance of its an- 

 terior palmated fore legs, which singular habitat appears to be ac- 

 counted for by the circumstance, also stated by him, that when 

 confined with some of the stercoracious lamellicorn Beetles (Helio- 

 cantharus sacer, &c.), they pull them in pieces and devour them ; and 

 M. Lefebvre de Cerisy, who has published some observations upon the 

 same species, informs us that they are nocturnal insects of prey 

 remaining in their retreats during the day, but sallying forth at night 

 and preying upon such Melolonthae, &c., as fall in their way. These 

 latter insects seem indeed to be a favourite food of the Carabidae in 

 general, for the former author elsewhere states that the chief nourish- 

 ment of the true Carabi consists of the larvge of insects and of herbi- 

 vorous beetles, such as Cockchafers, Rosechafers, &c., which, as Mr. Dill- 

 wyn also observes, they certainly prefer (^Memoranda, p. 56.) Latreille 

 adds that the beautiful Carabus auratus, which is probably thence 

 termed in France " Le Jardinier," devours more cockchafers than all 

 the other enemies of these destructive insects by attacking and killing 

 the females at the period of oviposition, and thus preventing the birth 

 of thousands of young larva?. These insects are therefore of es- 

 sential service in keeping down the numbers of noxious insects with 

 which our gardens and pastures might otherwise be overrun. It has 

 been suggested to me by a celebrated zoologist, that the carnivorous 

 quadrupeds which are the analogies of the predacious land beetles, in 

 like manner prey upon herbivorous quadrupeds.* 



* The anterior tibia; of a great number of the species are deeply notched near 

 the tip, on the inside ; and Mr. Curtis has noticed an interesting peculiarity of 

 structure in the anterior tibia; of the genus Cillenum, which are not only armed 

 with the two ordinary spurs (one above and the other below this notch), but liave, 

 also, two additional deflexed spines at the outer extremity of the notch, between 

 which spines he presumes the lower moveable spur is received ; hence he conceives 

 that these notched anterior legs of the Carabidaa are used in seizing and retaining 

 their prey, for the limb of an insect being received into the notch, and the lower 



