462 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



which may be to define by synthesis the subdivision of this 

 order. 



The chief cause of our being placed in this dilemma, is 

 the almost total ignorance which prevails with respect to 

 Coleopterous larva?. It is true, indeed, that names and ge- 

 neral characters, drawn from the analogy which these larvae 

 bear to the five different types of form which compose the 

 circle of Ametabola, have been bestowed in the preceding 

 pages on the leading groups or tribes into which the order 

 of Coleoptera may be divided. But these characters are 

 by no means to be understood as rigorously exact. If it 

 be possible ever to assign such, it can only be after a series 

 of minute observations, and a much more accurate exami- 

 nation than any to which the larva? of insects have yet been 

 subjected. Now, however, that the science of Entomology 

 is so nearly relieved from the ignorant prejudices which 

 have prevented its cultivation, there is reason to hope that 

 this branch of the physiology of insects will no longer be 

 overlooked. It is very sure that the economy of the 

 greatest part of these animals is most calculated to excite 

 curiosity, and most connected with the interests of man, 

 while in the first stage of Metamorphosis ; and moreover 

 that they would, while in this state, have undoubtedly en- 

 gaged particular attention from the observers of Nature, 

 had their forms been but more attractive to the eye. 



In the researches here recommended to entomologists, 

 great advantage is in my opinion to be derived from a 

 careful consideration of larva forms with reference to the 

 Ametabola ; for of these we may see even the more singular 

 and eccentric genera represented by the larva? of Coleo- 

 ptera. The larva of Anthrenus, for instance, bears a strong 



