PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. IX 



with the Cicindelida and Carabida, cannot be maintained, but 

 that the most consistent and natural division will be found in 

 Latreille's two grand families Cicindeletes and Carabici, which 

 arrangement I have accordingly resumed under the terms Cicin- 

 delidce and Carabida, the distinctive characters of which will be 

 found stated ; and I have furthermore divided the latter into five 

 groups or subfamilies, according to the plan set forth by 

 Mr. Westwood in his ' Introduction to the Modern Classification 

 of Insects/ with this difference however, that I have transposed 

 the third and fourth groups, considering it more desirable that 

 the Harpalides should immediately precede the Bembidides ; and 

 the natural transition from Trechus to Bembidium be maintained 

 through the intimate affinities which subsist between those 

 remarkable insects Aepys* marinus, Blemus areolatus, Lymnceum 

 nigropiceum, and Cillenus lateralis ; and I have placed Pelophila 

 and the Elaphridea in their natural juxtaposition with Nebria, 

 though by so doing, the foreign genus Homophron is further 

 removed from the Hydrocantharides, to which at first view, and 

 judging merely from its external structure, it would seem to be 

 more nearly allied than it really is : in this arrangement I have 

 consequently followed, under certain modifications, Dejean, 

 Erichson, Heer, Redtenbacher, and in fact most of the continental 

 entomologists. 



The first group (Brachinides) comprises all the genera which 

 were comprehended in the family Brachinidte of MacLeay and 

 Stephens; and corresponds with Dejean' s subfamily Truncati- 

 pennes, or Ground-Beetles with the apex of their elytra truncate 

 and not quite covering the abdomen ; these also have the anterior 

 tibiae notched within before the apex and the anterior tarsi in 

 the <J rarely dilated. 



The second group (Scaritides) corresponds with the Scaritides 

 of Dejean and the family Scaritides of MacLeay and Stephens, 

 and comprises insects of a very remarkable form, being usually 

 elongate and cylindrical, with their abdomen remote from the 

 thorax with which it is connected by a narrow collar or neck ; 

 these have their elytra entire ; their anterior tibise deeply notched 

 within and generally expanded or palmated externally; the 

 anterior tarsi being simple in both sexes. 



* Properly Aepys, aifrvs altus pro profundus. 



