PREDACEOUS GROUND-BEETLES. 
37 
Sub-sec. IY. Peptinicornes. Antennae pectinate or comb-toothed 
Tribe 6. Stag beetles. 
Family : Lucanidae. 
Sub-sec. V. Lamellicornes. Antennae lamellate. Food-habits 
different in the two tribes. 
Tribe 7. Lamellicorn dung-beetles. ( Excrementivora lamellioor- 
nia.) Sapkophaga, MacLeay. 
Families: Copridae; Aphodiidae ; Geotrupidse; Trogidm. 
Tribe 8. Lamellicorn leaf-beetles. ( Herbivora lamellicornia.) 
Thalerophaga, MacLeay. 
Families : Dynastidae ; Rutelidae ; Melolonthidm ; Cetoniidm. 
Sub-sec. YI. Ser r iconics . Autennae usually more or less ser- 
rate or saw-toothed. Food-habits various. 
Tribe 9. Saw-horned wood-beetles. ( Lignivora serricornia.) 
Sternoxi, Latreille. 
Families: Buprestidae; Elateridae; Cebrionidte. 
Tribe 10. Aberrant wood-beetles. ( Lignivora aberrantia.) 
Families: Ptinidae; Cupesida?; Lymexylonidae. 
Tribe 11 . Soft-winged predaceous beetles. (Carnivora mollipen- 
nata.) Malacoderhi, Latreille. 
Families: Lampyridie; Melyridae; Cleridae. 
Fiiet Sub-soction, FILICORNES. 
Aq*e»mu filiform ; palpi apparently six ■, habits preilaeeons. 
Tuihe I. 
PREDAOEOUS GROUND BEETLES. 
Carnivora terrestria. Geodephaga,* MacLeay. 
This extensive tribe of beetles is distinguished by their slender and 
filiform, or slightly tapering antennae, in connection with their five- 
jointed tarsi or feet, all the joints always being distinct even in the 
smallest species ; by having apparently six palpi ; and by the promi- 
nence of their large egg-shaped posterior trochanters, which furnish a 
very distinctive and easily recognized character, and which no other 
coleopterous insects possess so conspicuously developed. (See Fig. 3, on 
page 27.) No insects have strictly more than four palpi, and the appar- 
ent additional pair which is peculiar to this and the following tribe, are 
really the outer lobes of the maxillae which are here palpiform. They 
are almost exclusively carnivorous in their diet, and pre-eminently pre- 
daceous in their habits, both in the larva and the perfect states. They 
♦ From the Greek yij the earth, and a drj(fdyo<; ravenous. 
