230 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



Yet, with all these incipient indications of a prehensile 

 foot, these insects are invariably found upon the ground, 

 where, however, they walk with much more difficulty 

 than the typical Scarab&ince. The sub-genus Ele- 

 phastomus, with its incurved snout, is one of the most 

 singular insects in this assemblage. 



(202.) Many of the observations that we have made 

 upon the habits of the ScarabceincB at page 227.; will be 

 found to attach to the present group. These insects, 

 however, are never richly metallic ; and they are more 

 exclusively fossorial. They differ less in form, but more 

 in habits, from each other, than that group ; for Lethrus 

 feeds upon the eyes of the vine, and where they abound 

 in the vicinity of vineyards, they do considerable mis- 

 chief. They are more essentially social than any of 

 the Petalocera, for they live in pairs in deep burrows in 

 the ground. Fischer tells us that they are very jealous, 

 and extremely pugnacious ; and their structure would at 

 once convince us that such collision must be very severe, 

 the mandibles of the male having beneath an enormous 

 process, nearly or quite as large as the organ itself. There 

 are but few genera belonging to this group, and their 

 species also are not numerous ; and these genera have 

 also a more limited geographical range than those of the 

 adjacent families. Thus, Elephastomus is confined to 

 New Holland; Orphnus, to Africa and India; Geotrupes, 

 to Europe and America ; Lethrus is wholly European, 

 but Bolboceras ranges over the entire world. W. 

 E. Sh.] 



(203.) The Dynastina* evidently follow the Geo- 

 trupincB in a natural series, through the medium of 

 such forms as have their bodies rather longer than the 

 Geotrupints, but shorter than that of Oryctes nasi- 

 cornis. This latter we shall, for the present, view as 

 the type, not because we really believe it to be such, 

 but because it is the only species of whose habits and 

 economy, as yet, any thing decisive is known. Although 



* Here separated from the Megasomince, but confounded v/ith them by 

 former writers. 



