CLASSIFICATION OF COLEOPTKRA. 247 



notwithstanding the lesser number of segments in the legs, have 

 a great general resemblance to those of the Adephaga. 



This resemblance is considered by Ganglbauer and Kolbe to 

 indicate a relationship between the two groups, and is one of 

 their reasons for placing the Staphylinoidea first in the suborder 

 Polyphaga. It has been explained already that they regard 

 the wing-venation of the Staphylinoidea as being derived directly 

 from the Adephagan type, and that Lameere holds a different 

 view. He believes that the resemblance between the larvae of 

 the Staphylinoidea and Adephaga has been brought about as 

 the result of a convergence of characters, and is not to be 

 attributed to any common inheritance. Nor does the Cam- 

 podea-form of the Staphylinid larvae appeal to bim as a sign of 

 their more primitive origin over that of the Cantharidiformes. 



In consonance with his views upon the origin of meta- 

 morphosis in insects, Lameere holds that in insects with a 

 complete metamorphosis the cruciform type of larva is more 

 primitive than the Campodiform type, and therefore he does 

 not admit the truth of Brauer's law when applied to these 

 insects, although that law — namely, the nearer the larva is to 

 the imago and to the ancestral form the more primitive is the 

 type— does, he thinks, hold good in the case of the Hetero- 

 metabola. 



His views in this respect have left a marked influence on his 

 classification. They explain to a great extent why he is so 

 strong in maintaining the Cupedidae as the most primitive 

 family in the Adephaga, and in placing the Teredilia as the 

 first and most primitive group in the suborder Polyphaga, 

 although he has given other reasons also for adopting this 

 course. There is, however, a mistake in one of his reasons for 

 regarding the Cupedidae as the most primitive of the Adephaga, 

 namely, that the abdominal rings are not fused together as they 

 are in the other Adephaga. It is precisely for this reason that 

 the sternites and pleurae of the second abdominal segment are 

 completely fused with those of the third, that Ganglbauer con- 

 siders the Cupedidae to be one of the more modified families of 

 Adephaga, and that Kolbe in his later classification removes 

 them from that suborder, in which, excepting the Paussidae, the 

 second sternite is only partially fused with the third, being 

 distinct from it at the sides of the abdomen. 



As Ganglbauer points out, mistakes of this kind are apt to 

 arise from the custom followed by systematists of referring to 

 the first visible sternite of the abdomen as the first ventral 

 segment, whereas it is actually in some cases the sternite of 

 the second, in others of the third segment, or else represents 

 the sternites of the two fused together. The sternite of the 

 first segment has in most cases disappeared, leaving no trace 

 behind. 



