COTO PPE RA, 
LAMELLICORNIA. 
THIS is perhaps the most sharply detined of all the large series into 
which the Coleoptera have, for convenience sake, been divided : it 
contains two strongly-marked families, the Lucanidew and Scarabeide, 
which are distinguished by having the antenne terminated by a distinct 
and usually large club, which is composed of from three to seven lamellie 
or plates: these in the Lucanide are immoveable, and the club is pec- 
tinate, but inthe Scarabzidwz they are in some cases capable of being shut 
closely together or opened like the leaves of a book, while in others they 
are received into the first joint which is hollowed. The chief pecu- 
liarity, however, that strikes the ordinary observer with regard to the 
Lamellicornia generally is the immense development of the mandibles in 
many of the species, and more especially the great horns that arise from 
the head, thorax, and clypeus of the males: the use for which these horns 
are destined has given rise to much discussion. Mr. Darwin (“ Descent 
of Man,” page 297) says ‘‘that the extraordinary size of the horns, and 
their widely different structure in closely-allied forms, indicate that they 
have been formed for some purpose; but their excessive variability in the 
males of the same species leads to the inference that this purpose cannot 
be of a definite nature. The horns do not show marks of friction, as if 
used for any ordinary work. Some authors suppose that as the males 
wander about much more than the females, they require horns as a 
defence against their enemies ; but as the horns are often blunt, they do 
not seem well adapted for defence. The most obvious conjecture is that 
they are used by the males for fighting together; but the males have 
never been observed to fight; nor could Mr. Bates, after a careful 
examination of numerous species, find any sufficient evidence, in their 
mutilated or broken condition, of their having been thus used ;” the 
latter remark, of course, applies only to the species with largely 
developed horns, as those in which the mandibles are much developed 
(e.g. Lucanus) fight very fiercely; Mr. Darwin comes finally to the 
conclusion that the horns have been acquired as ornaments, and that this 
hypothesis agrees best with the fact of their having been so immensely 
and yet not fixedly developed, and concludes his remarks on the group 
VOL. IV. B 
