186 Prof. J.C. Schjédte on the Classification 
larve of that division group themselves round two, and only 
two, entirely different types—that of Buprestis and that of 
Elater, the former burrowing in different parts of plants and 
being phytophagous, the latter being blood-suckers or living on 
vegetable juices. In both divisions we meet with modifications 
of the type analogous to those met with in all other natural 
divisions of Coleoptera,—their body being more or less hard 
or quite soft, the buccal organs, the organs of move- 
ment, the limbs, the point of the abdomen and the anal 
segment more or less developed—all in accordance with the 
occurrence and quality of the food. The larva of Melasis thus 
belongs to the Elater-type, but is modified for the purpose of 
hunting xylophagous larvee living in hard wood. In the larva of 
Fornaz the mouth appears, from the description of Coquerel (Ann. 
de la Soc. Ent. de Fr. sér.3. iv. pp. 511-516, pl.15. fig. 37, d,m), 
to be still more modified than that of Me/asis in the direction of 
the organization met with in such larve of Anthata as live on 
prey in galleries in wood, 2. e. in those larvee of Laphria which 
suck the larvee of Buprestidee. 
These larvee of Antliata correspond, within their own order, 
exactly to the larvee of Melasis and Fornaw in Coleoptera, the re- 
lation in point of structure between the former and the phyto- 
phagous larvee of Antliata being exactly the same as that between 
the Coleopterous larve in question and those of Buprestidee. 
That Coquerel failed to discover the opening of the mouth in 
the larva of Fornax can have been-caused only by the fact that 
it merely possesses a small orifice for sucking blood, whereas he 
expected to find a large cavity of the mouth, supposing as he 
did that the larva burrowed in timber and fed on wood. La- 
cordaire, who also supposed that it “fed on wood” and con- 
structed gallerics, though only in decaying wood, is hkewise 
astonished at the want of a mouth (Gen. des Coléopt. iv. p. 565). 
I have on purpose limited the preceding inquiry into the 
larvee of Buprestidee and Elateridz to what was absolutely ne- 
cessary for the attaimment of my aim, which was nothing more 
than to clear away the obstacles which that interpretation of 
their structure which has hitherto prevailed has placed in the way 
of that view of their mutual relationship which will be deve- 
loped in the sequel. I am in possession of very rich materials 
for the illustration of these larvee in detail; but I reserve that 
for the continuation of my papers on the larve of Coleoptera, 
published in the ‘ Naturhistorisk Tidsskrift.’ 
v 
For a long time after the publication of Audouin’s well-known 
treatise on the thorax of Insects, in which he had distinguished 
