40 THE ORDER OF COLEOPTERA. 



subsist mostly upon succulent roots, and upon the pith and steins of 

 grasses. 



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

 ing mandibles, and usually furnished at the hind extremity with a pair 

 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 confinemeut, and however well cared for, 

 they rarely live long enough to complete their transformations. 



The Carabidai constitute a very difficult 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 afibrd us no aid, if the specimen in hand happens to be a female. 

 I^othing 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 the principal divisions which they have 

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

 class of characters to be of primary importance. Linnseus 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- 

 rumj and subsequently in the Beyne Animal. This author divides the 

 Carabidib into seven sections, based upon the forms of the elytra, feet 

 and palpi. Lacordaire, in his great work upon the Genera des Coleopteres^ 

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

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

 of the metathorax ; and these legions 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- 

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

 these insects, in his Kotes 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 the Coleoptera of N. America, 

 (18G0,) he abandons the number of abdominal segments as of primary 

 value, and divides the family into three sub-families, based upon the 

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

 intermediate coxje. 



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

 adapted to our purpose, we will divide the Carabidie into six sub-families, 

 as follows : 



