610 BIOLOGY. 



are only tri- and tetrameral, like the Lycoperdinse and 

 Erotyli. Besides this the antennae of the Fungivora are 

 usually thickened, and even club shaped, whereby they 

 thus stand nearer to the Necrophaga, such as the 

 Speckkafern and Sexton-beetles, as being those which 

 likewise live upon putrid substances. It is difficult to 

 separate the Coccinellidae from them ; their external 

 resemblance to the Erotyli is also striking. 



The pentameral Raub- Lauf- and Sandkafern form, as 

 it were, the trunk or main stem of the Zoophagous beetles, 

 to which are annexed likewise the pentameral Malacop- 

 terous chafers, namely, the Lampyridae, as parasites. 



But the heteromeral Cantharides have also the same 

 soft wings and mode of life, so that they are not in a 

 natural system, even if devoid of principles, to be sepa- 

 rated from the Malacopterous beetles. 



The nourishment of the Lamellicorn beetles appears 

 to me to be most perfect in kind. Mould or dung can 

 be regarded as a fully prepared aliment, or, as it were, 

 a minced and cooked meat with greens prepared by 

 Nature, like as Man restores it by art. Thus the lower 

 Thricozoa, e. g. the Mice, eat the crudest vegetable sub- 

 stances, such as roots and seeds ; those that stand higher, 

 grass and leaves ; then snails, worms, and insects ; finally 

 flesh, and last of all fruits, as the Bears and Apes. 

 But Man lets the crude matters ferment or reduces them 

 to rapid decomposition by cooking, whereby a mixed 

 kind of food results, which bears obviously the greatest 

 resemblance to dung which, as just observed, is a food 

 cooked by nature. 



According to these considerations I now arrange what 

 have been called Beetles in the following manner into 

 divisions drawn from philosophical principles. 



The Beetles again commence, like the whole class of 

 Flies, from below, and the inferior kinds pass therefore 

 parallel to the Tracheo- and Dictyoptera, while the su- 

 perior project above them, as was the case also in the 

 preceding classes. 



Tn a more remote manner also they repeat the lower 



