274 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



CHAP. VIII. 



COLEOPTERA, continued. 



CAPRICORNES. 



(245.) FROM the close affinity, already remarked, be- 

 tween the LucanidcB and the Prionidce, there can he no 

 doubt that the lamellicorn arid Capricorn tribes are 

 united. This union, which has long been admitted by 

 modern writers, will now be confirmed by additional 

 evidence, founded on those general laws of natural ar- 

 rangement upon which our entire theory reposes. Mr. 

 Maeleay, looking only to the formation of the larvae, or 

 more properly to the metamorphosis, hesitates not to 

 place the Capricorn beetles between the Lametticornes 

 and the Monilicornes. This conclusion we have also 

 come to, from studying the perfect insects, and by test- 

 ing the theory by our own impression of the laws of 

 representation. 



(246.) The chief or typical characteristic of this tribe, 

 presented by the adult insect, is the great length of their 

 antennae, their large and vertical head, and the unusual 

 strength of their jaws : the construction of their tarsi 

 is also peculiar, and they are all, while in their larva 

 state, lignivorous, or, at least, living in the internal 

 substance of vegetables ; chiefly, however, in solid 

 wood. Hence it is, that although many of the groups, 

 which we shall here consider aberrant, are very dif- 

 ferent, in their adult state, to the pre-eminent types, 

 they agree with them much more closely in the general 

 shape of their larvae. This form of larva, by Macleay, is 

 termed Apod, and is defined as ' ' having scarcely the 

 rudiments of antennae, and furnished, instead of feet, 

 with flat fleshy tubercles, which, when continued along 



