246 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



generally no difficulty in recognizing the hook-like connection 

 which the anterior branch (M^) of the media makes with the 

 media, forming as it were a recurrent branch of the latter. It 

 is scarcely probable that this character, which is the one most 

 distinctive of the Cantharoidean type, has not been derived 

 directly from that type, but derived instead directly and in- 

 dependently from the Adephagan type. 



The larvae of the Lamellicornia (those of the Synteliidfe are 

 unknown) differ wholly in form and structure from those of the 

 Staphylinoidea. The primitive segmentation of the abdomen 

 which the Lamellicornia have in common with the Staphy- 

 linoidea — the character which seems to weigh most with Kolbe 

 — is not confined amongst the Polyphaga to those two groups ; 

 it is a character also of the Malacoderms as a whole, and is met 

 with as well in some of the lower forms of Teredilia, Dascil- 

 loidea, Sternoxia, and Heteromera. And in view of this fact, 

 admitted by Kolbe himself, I do not understand why he has not 

 included the Malacoderms in his division Haplogastra, unless, 

 as I have said, he is prepared to maintain that the wing-venation 

 has been differently derived in each of bis two divisions of the 

 Polyphaga. 



In Lameere's classification the Staphylinoidea immediately 

 follow t)ie Lamellicornia in the linear arrangement, but that 

 results from an entirely different view from Kolbe's, and is only 

 because the Lamellicornia come as the highest and terminal 

 group in his first division of the Polyphaga, while the Staphy- 

 linoidea constitute the whole of his second division. 



Larval Form and Structure. — If further justification were 

 needed for a division of the Coleoptera into the two suborders 

 Adephaga and Polyphaga, it would be found in a study of the 

 larvte. The larvsB of the Adephaga differ from all other beetle 

 larvae in having one more segment to each leg,* which also 

 usually terminates in two claws, whereas in the other larvae it 

 never has more than a single claw. They are not only distinct 

 in structure from all other Coleopterous larvae, but they appear 

 also to be more primitive. In their general form, their active 

 movements, and their possession of jointed anal appendages, 

 they recall Campodea and other Thysanura. The structure of 

 their mouth-parts differs less from that of the imagines than it 

 does in other Coleopterous larvae. 



The larvae of the Staphylinoidea also are active, Campodi- 

 form, and possessed of anal appendages resembling cerci, and, 



* The only exception known at present occurs in the Paussidae. The 

 first undoubted larva of this family was recently described by Dr. Boving. 

 It has only five segments in each leg, as compared with the six present in 

 other Adephagan larvae. But its other characters point to its affinities with 

 the Adephaga. 



