278 NATURAI, ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



rienced student has, no doubt, often captured them. Their 

 light and elegant shape, cursorial feet, and small head, 

 ofiPer a contrast to the Cerambyiidce. With regard to the 

 fourth type, we have already expressed our doubts, chiefly 

 arising from a deficiency of analysis. We were long 

 disposed to think that this part of the series was naturally 

 occupied by such genera as Sagra and Crioceris, parti- 

 cularly as Latreille places them immediately in conjunc- 

 tion with Leptura, — a station, after all, they may possibly 

 hold ; but their still closer affinity, as we conceive, to 

 the Cliri/somelidrp, prevents us from following such high 

 authority. Satisfied, for reasons that will presently ap- 

 pear, that the Curculionidce were the most aberrant 

 family of the Capricornes, our next object was to find 

 what group was most likely to connect these, in some 

 degree, with the Lepturldce, by means of Attelabus, which 

 Latreille very judiciously arranges close to the Curculio- 

 nidce. On these grounds have we formed the conjecture 

 that most of the Bostrichi intervene between these two 

 families — more particularly as we do not think they form 

 a part either of the Lucanidce or the Prionidce. By this 

 means, also, the evident afiinity between Bostrichus and 

 Clems may be preserved, if we consider the latter as 

 leading to the Coccinellida and Chrysomdidce, the former 

 of which they resemble by the carnivorous habits of their 

 larvae. All this, however, as we stated before, must be 

 considered a mere matter of opinion, until the groups to 

 which these several insects are in any way related are 

 thoroughly analysed. 



(250.) We may now turn to the analogies resulting 

 from the above arrangement of the whole tribe ; and as 

 the most difficult of these AviU regard the CurculionidcB, 

 we shall commence by the following comparison. 



