318 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



CHAP. X. 



COLEOPTERA, continued. 



ON THE MALACODERMES. 



(284.) THE MALACODERMES, or winged tribe of beetles, 

 is composed of those genera, where the elytra are either 

 remarkably soft, or much abbreviated : of these, the ge- 

 nera following, mostly representing sub-families, seem to 

 be the chiefly typical: Lampyris, Meloe, Cantharis, 

 Lytta, Lycus, Dictyoptera, &c. We adopt the expressive 

 name given to the majority of these insects by Latreille ; 

 but we by no means include all he has arranged among 

 his Malacodermes, and we incorporate others, as is ap- 

 parent even in the foregoing list, which he has placed 

 in widely different situations. Mr. MacLeay seems to 

 be the only naturalist who has had any clear conception 

 of this group, one of the most natural in the whole order, 

 to a philosophic mind, but altogether incomprehensible 

 to a mere methodist, who is guided by methods built on 

 the form of the palpi or the joints of the tarsi. True 

 it is, that soft-bodied insects, with imperfectly formed 

 elytra, are scattered in many other tribes, as the Staphy- 

 UnidcB among the Predator es, several forms belonging to 

 Prionidce, and many others in the Lepturidce, as Necy- 

 dalis, &c. ; but as, in other parts of their structure, 

 they retain all the characters of the groups to which 

 they severally belong, there is no danger of their being 

 mistaken or confounded with the true Malacodermes, 

 they are merely representatives, not congeners. In the 

 slight sketch we are now employed upon, any attempt 

 to define a group so varied, by precise characters appli- 

 cable to the whole, would be altogether premature, even 



