BRACHELYTRA. 85 



tribe just named. It must not, however, be forgotten, that predaceous animals 

 will sometimes content themselves with vegetable diet, and vice versa herbivorous 

 ones will sometimes attack animal matter. Cats will eat bread; I have seen, more 

 than once, Harpalidce devouring the seeds of umbelliferous plants ; Silpha ^-punc- 

 tata, Mr. Mac Leay informs us, ascends the oak for the purpose of devouring 

 caterpillars : the same learned Entomologist remarks, with respect to carnivorous 

 Coleoptera, "that as the aberrant insects of any group leave the living animal 

 food, which forms the entire subsistence of the normal part of the same group ; 

 they prey on dead animal matter, or, in preference to other vegetable matter, on 

 fungi," 5 to which it may be further added, in preference to fresh vegetable matter, 

 on putrid or putrescent — thus Creophilus, an aberrant Brachelytrous genus ap- 

 proaching Silpha, lives on dead flesh, and others, as Oxyporus, on fungi. 



From all the circumstances and characters above detailed, it seems evident, that, 

 with the exceptions just stated, the Brachelytra may generally be looked upon as 

 predaceous, therefore I regard their affinity to the Geadephaga as more intimate 

 than that of the Philkydrida to the Hydradephaga. 



There are two points by which the group in question may enter that of the 

 terrestrial Adephaga : one is that which Mr. Mac Leay has indicated, and which 

 has been adopted in Mr. Stephens' Systematic Catalogue, by Lesteva Lat. (Antho- 

 phagus Gravenh.) which appears connected with those that have truncated elytra, 

 as Lebia, &c; and the other is by the Stenldce, which exhibit as much of a Cicin- 

 delidan port and aspect as the other does of a Carabidan. These appear to 

 approach towards Colliuris, not only by their narrow bodies and clavated antennae, 

 but likewise in having truncated elytra. 



Led by these considerations, I shall now proceed in the first place to the descrip- 

 tion of the Brachelytra upon my list, as coming next the terrestrial Adephaga, 

 from which I shall proceed to the Necrophaga, or Clavicorncs of M. Latreille's 

 last work, and from them to the Philhydrida, or Palpicornes of the latter author, 

 as the group that connects with the aquatic ones, which will still maintain Mr. 

 Mac Leay's circular distribution though inverted. 



I must here observe, that, after Linne and Fabricius, Mr. Stephens, in the work 

 lately quoted, has made the Brachelytra his last coleopterous group, thinking 

 perhaps that their abbreviated elytra connects them with Forficula, and their anal 

 styles, which sometimes, as in Dianous Leach, become setae, with Blatta : at the 



5 Annulos. Javan. i, 37. 



