L AMELLICORNES ; SCARABjEI. 127 



impervious to the water on which it floats. The larvae, which have 

 a worm-like body, with six feet, and with sharp 

 mandibles arming the head, are very voracious ; 

 feeding upon Tadpoles and the young fry in 

 fish-ponds, and upon small fresh- water Mollusca. 



650. The last family of the Pentamerous sec- 

 tion, the LAMELLICOBNES, is of very great extent, 

 as well as one of the most striking of the whole 

 Beetle tribe, in regard to the size of the body, 

 and the variety in the form of the head and thorax 

 in the different sexes ; and also, moreover, in those 



species which in their perfect state live upon fresh vegetable sub- 

 stances, in respect to the brilliancy of the metallic colours with 

 which they are ornamented. But the majority of other species, 

 which subsist on decomposing vegetable matter, are of an uniform 

 brown or black colour; although some are not inferior in brilliancy 

 to the preceding. All have wings ; and they crawl but slowly 

 along the ground. None of them are aquatic. Their food consists 

 of dung, manure, tan, and particularly, in some species, of the 

 roots of vegetables ; whence these insects, in their larva state 

 especially (this being always the period of greatest voracity), 

 often occasion great loss to the cultivator. This family receives 

 its name from the peculiar conformation of the antennae, which 

 terminate in a mass formed of the last three joints : these are 

 flattened into plates or lamellae, and are sometimes arranged like 

 a fan or the leaves of a book, sometimes in the manner of a 

 comb, and sometimes inclosing one another. The family is 

 divided into two principal sections, the Scarabcei and the 

 Lucani. 



651. Of the Scarabcei, one subdivision, including the sacred 

 Beetle of the Egyptians (Fig. 344), feed principally upon the 

 excrements of various animals ; and they inclose their eggs in 

 balls of the same (whence they have been called Pilularii), 

 which they roll along with their hind feet, several often 

 being in company, until they reach the hole in which these 

 are to be deposited. Of these we have a characteristic ex- 

 ample among British species, in the Geotrupes stercorarius, the 



