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NATURAL HISTORY OF 
to give a historical and descriptive account of the 
leading groups and most remarkable species belong- 
ing to this extensive and important tribe of insects. 
The first division of the Coleoptera includes all 
the kinds which have five joints in each tarsus, on 
which account it is named 
PENTAMERA, 
a term derived from two Greek words, irwra, Jive , 
and fttgof, a part or joint. 
The species which most systematic writers place 
at the head of the coleopterous order, constituted 
the Linnaean genus Cicindela, a term which was 
anciently applied to various destructive insects, as 
well as to those possessing luminous properties. This 
precedence is assigned to them owing to a certain 
perfection and development of structure, by which 
they are fitted for a mode of life pre-eminently car- 
nivorous. The legs are long and slender to enable 
them to pursue their prey with rapidity, the eyes glo- 
bose and remarkably prominent, and all the organs 
employed for the purposes of prehension and masti- 
cation of the most efficient kind. Of these the man- 
dibles are most conspicuous, as they project from 
the head, and are garnished with long and powerful 
teeth. The same circumstance is observable in these 
