73 
SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE 
ADEPHAGA. 
By Peter Rylands, Esq. 
Considerable diversity has prevailed in the views of entomologists respecting 
the arrangement of Adephagous Coleoptera. Mr. Kirby selecting, as important 
characters, the variations in the clothing of the dilated joints of the tarsi, separates 
Adephaga into three sections (tribes), viz.:— 
1. Sarrothropoda , or those with dilated joints, clothed beneath with a dense 
brush of stiff hairs :— Cicindelidce , Clilcenius , and its allies. Others have 
only a few hairs at the sides of the joints of the tarsi. 
2. Cgstopoda , or those with the foot-cushions formed of little membranous 
vesicles or cysts variously arranged:— Brctchinus , Agonum , and various 
Harpaiides. 
3. Pgxidiopoda , or those with the foot-cushions formed of pedunculated cups 
or suckers :— HgticidceA 
Other differences in the foot-cushions have been observed, but which Mr. Kirby 
appears not to have noticed. These, consequently, would require the establish¬ 
ment of additional sections, containing species which have certainly no claim to 
the rank that Mr. Kirby’s method would give them. And were this not the 
case, the evident impropriety of separating Harpalidce , &c., from Carabidce , and 
considering them as equal in rank to Pgxidiopoda , K. ( Hgdradephaga , MacL., 
Dyticacea , Ryl.), at once manifests the arrangement to be unnatural. 
The majority of naturalists agree in dividing Adephaga into two tribes, 1st., 
Geodephaga , MacL. {Carabacea, Ryl.), and 2nd., Hgdradephaga , MacL. ( Dgti - 
cacea , Ryl.). 
Mr. Stephens arranges the insects contained in the first tribe in seven families, 
namely, Cicindelidce , Brachinidce, Scaritidce , Carabidce , Harpalidce , Bembi- 
diidce , Elaphridce. 
This arrangement is objectionable, inasmuch as it separates Harpalidce and 
Scaritidce (which evidently run into each other), and raises to the rank of a 
family Elctphrus and the allied genera, which (the comparative brevity of their 
antennae being the principal distinction) can only be considered as constituting a 
division of Carabidce. 
Mr. Westwood divides his family Carabidce into five sub-families :—1. Bra - 
chinides , 2. Scaritides , 3. Harpaiides , 4. Car abides, 5. Bembidiides.f Mr. W. 
* Kirby, as quoted in Westwood’s Introd. to Classif.. p.^46. 
t Westwood, Introd. to Classify., p. 74. 
VOL. IV.-—NO. XXVI. 
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