OF THE ORDER COLEOPTERA. 279 



The NEBRi.f: approximate to the carabi, properly so called, 

 in many points, though they are distinguished from them by 

 many others. They are carabici of a middling size. These 

 insects do not present the brilliant and metallic colours which 

 distinguish most of the carabi. They are for the most part 

 black or brown. Others have the ground yellowish, and 

 varied more or less with black. The greater number of 

 species inhabit cold and elevated situations, and in general 

 humid. Their metamorphoses are unknown. 



The genus Omophron, which had been confounded with 

 that of Carabus, was by Fabricius designated Scolytus, a 

 name previously bestowed by GeofFroy upon a very different 

 genus of coleoptera, and adopted subsequently by Olivier 

 and M, Latreille. The confusion which was the result of all 

 this, determined M. Latreille to designate the Scolytus of 

 Fabricius by the name of Omophron. M. Clairville has put 

 this genus at the head of his adephagous aquatic coleoptera, 

 as forming the passage from them to the terrestrial adephagi, 

 — but, says M. Latreille, he should have pointed out the 

 characters of these two sections, and not have confined him- 

 self to distinctions purely nominal. Though the insects of 

 this genus inhabit the borders of aquatic places, and though 

 they are even found sometimes in the water, it is not less true 

 that they appertain, by the assemblage of their characters, 

 notwithstanding certain relations, to the terrestrial carni- 

 vorous coleoptera. The mandibles of the larvas of Omophron 

 limbatus, discovered and described by M. Desmarest, resem- 

 ble those of the carabici, and do not present near their ex- 

 tremity that aperture which is observable in the mandibles of 

 the hydrocanthari, or aquatic carnivorous coleoptera — a cha- 

 racter which seems to indicate that those organs perform the 

 office of a sucker. 



These insects live on the banks of waters. They remain in 

 the sand, between the roots of plants w^hich grow there, and 



