2684S0 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



OF 



BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY, 



COLEOPTERA. 

 Subsection I. — Geodephaga. 

 Family VI.— BEMBIDIIDJE mihi. 



The remarkable structure of the palpi of those insects which are 

 contained in this family obviously distinguishes them from the Har- 

 palidse, with which they are associated by Mr. MacLeay, though 

 Knoch, linger, Latreille, Clairville, and others, have separated 

 them from the genus Harpalus, by the names of Tachys, Elaphrus, 

 Bembidion, Ocydromus, &c. respectively. 



How far their separation as a family from the foregoing may be 

 strictly in accordance with the natural grouping of the Chilopodo- 

 morphous insects, I shall not here attempt to show ; but, as I believe, 

 with Mr. MacLeay, that Nature forms a kind of circular series in 

 the chain of affinities in which the quinary principle predominates, 

 I shall merely observe that I agree with Mr. Kirby in opinion, that 

 she does not always dispose her subjects, in every department, into 

 fives, but that different numbers may possibly obtain in different 

 groups ; and why not more than five in the overwhelming family of 

 Geodephaga, when we find the succeeding one of Hydradephaga so 

 greatly deficient? 



So far as the habits of the Geodephaga are capable of differing, 

 the insects of this family are evidently dissimilar to the Harpalidse, 

 as, unlike those insects in general, they usually frequent low, damp, 

 and marshy situations, while the typical Harpalidse affect dry, gra- 

 velly, chalky, or hilly and mountainous districts ; the less typical, 

 as Trechus, &c. approximating to the Bembidiidse and the latter 

 t o the Hydradephaga : again, the difference in the formation of the 

 palpi cannot but strike the most incurious observer. 



Mandieulata. Vol. II. 1st July, 1828. b 



