40 
THE ORDER OF OOLEOPTERA. 
subsist mostly upon succulent roots, and upon the pith and steins of 
grasses. . . 
The larva} are active grubs, of an elongated form, with sharp, project- 
ing mandibles, and usually furnished at the hind extremity with a pair 
of conical, bristly appendages. They live in the same obscure situations 
as the parent insects, but are still more retiring, and are seldom seen. 
They are very intolerant of confinement, and however well cared for, 
they rarely live long enough to complete their transformations. 
The Carabid® constitute a very difficult study, on account of their 
great numbers and the general uniformity of their coloring ; and what 
adds much to this difficulty is, that some of the most valuable charac- 
ters used in their classification are peculiar to the male sex, and there- 
fore afford us no aid, if the specimen in hand happens to be a female. 
Nothing but the familiarity which is the result of long experience m the 
study of these insects, can enable the student to recognize the slight 
modifications of form by which the minor divisions are characterized. 
Authors have differed much in the principal divisions which they have 
made in this family, accordingly as they have assumed one or another 
class of characters to be of primary importance. Linmeus united all the 
species which he knew in the single genus Cardbus. Fabricius, and 
others of the earlier authors, established many new genera, and Latreille 
combined and systematized them in the Genera Crustaceorum ct Insccto- 
rum, and subsequently in the Begne Animal This author divides the 
Carabid® into seven sections, based upon the forms of the elytra, tee 
and palpi. Lacordaire, in his great work upon the Genera des Coleopteres, 
following the method of Erichson, divides the family primarily into two 
legions, founded upon the peculiarities of the tibite and of the epimera 
of the metathorax; and these legions he subsequently divides into ten 
sections, corresponding, in the main, with the sections of Latreille, with 
three additional ones, to receive certain anomalous forms. Dr. J. L. Le- 
Conte, the learned Coleopterist of our own country, originally divided 
these insects, in his Notes upon the classification of the Carabid®, pub- 
lished in the tenth volume of the Transactions ot the American 1 hilo- 
sophical Society, 1853, intb three sub-families, fouuded upon the number 
of abdominal segments and the form of the epimera of the mesothorax. 
In his later work upon the classification of the Coleoptera of N. America, 
(1800,) he abandons the number of abdominal segments as ot primary 
value, and divides the family into three sub-families, based upon the 
form of the epimera of the mesothorax, and the relative position ot the 
intermediate cox®. 
Selecting from all these sources the characters which seem to be bes 
adapted to our purpose, we will divide the Carabid® into six subfamilies, 
as follows : 
