of Buprestide and Elateride. 185 
stance, than the remarkable larva of Haliplus, which in so stri- 
king a manner maintains the type of its family, whilst so widely 
differing in external appearance. At the same time, perhaps, 
there is not much reason to fear such an objection just at present ; 
for although it is still constantly repeated that the larvae of Ela- 
teride are generally phytophagous, and only exceptionally take 
animal food, I do not hesitate to assert directly the contrary— 
namely, that they are carnivorous as a rule, and only exception- 
ally phytophagous; and the positive affirmation of this truth 
has, so to say, long been looming in the horizon.  Erichson 
considers the larvee of HElateridee unreservedly as phytopha- 
gous, some being supposed to feed on decaying wood, others 
on fresh roots: nevertheless he was not without scruples, 
for he adds, in a note, that he doubts whether larve with 
such a mouth really can masticate their food (Archiv f. Natur- 
geschichte, 1841, 1. pp. 87-88). Nor do I doubt that many a col- 
lector, when his attention is drawn to the subject, will remember 
very often to have met with these larvee under bark, in decaying 
wood and wood-dust, engaged in the very act of piercing the 
bodies of soft larvee and pup, and thus be enabled to confirm 
from his own experience those testimonies which already have 
appeared at different times as to the carnivorous habits of the 
larvee of Elateride. It seems that the attention of some has 
already been drawn to.the analogy between the structure of their 
mouth and that of the larve of Carabi; so that it may soon be 
generally acknowledged, what I certainly hold to be the true 
view, that they are as truly typical carnivorous animals as 
the larvee of Carabi, and that they bite through the skin of 
their prey, tear it to pieces, crush and suck it just like the larve 
of Carabi—with which tribe they also correspond in this parti- 
cular, that a certain number of them, being on purpose en- 
dowed with shorter and thicker mandibles, shorter legs, less 
perfect armour of the pomt of the abdomen and of the anal 
segment (that is, with less power of locomotion), eat their way 
into juicy and farinaceous roots, destroying them in the same 
way as the animal food of the majority is treated, by crushing 
and sucking. It is a state of things quite analogous to what 
we find in insectivorous and carnivorous scnainclbes among 
which the hedgehog, the badger, and the bear are distinguished 
by modifications of the type, either in the movements of the 
jaws, or in the teeth, or in both, which do not by any means 
destroy the original carnivorous type, but nevertheless enable 
the animal to extend its range of food to vegetable matter sufli- 
ciently rich in nitrogen. 
If, now, we comprise within our view the whole division of 
Sternoxi, starting from this new information we find that the 
