Beetles 
2 5 1 
hatch larvae usually called grubs, with three pairs of legs (sometimes want¬ 
ing), with biting mouth-parts, simple eyes, and inconspicuous antennas. 
These larvae are predaceous, as the water-tigers (larvae of water-beetles), 
plant-feeders, as the larvae of the long-horns, or carrion-feeders, as those of the 
burying-beetles, and so on. They grow, moult several times, and finally change 
into a pupa either on or in the food, or very often in a rough cell under¬ 
ground. From the pupa issues the fully developed winged beetle, which 
usually has the same feeding-habits as the larva. The special food-habits 
and characteristics of development are given for numerous common species 
in the accounts (posted) of the various more important families of the order. 
The enonomic status of the order Coleoptera is an important one. So 
many of the beetles are plant-feeders, and are such voracious eaters in both 
larval and adult stages, that the order must be held to be one of the most 
destructive in the insect class. Such notorious pests as the Colorado potato- 
beetle, the two apple-tree borers, round-headed and flat-headed, the “buffalo- 
moth” or carpet-beetle, the wireworms (larvae of click-beetles), the white 
grubs (larvae of June beetles), rose-chafers, flea-beetles, bark-borers and 
fruit- and grain-weevils, are assuredly enough to give the order a bad name. 
But there are good beetles as well as bad ones. The little ladybirds eat 
unnumbered hosts of plant-lice and scale-insects; the carrion-beetles are 
active scavengers, and the members of the predaceous families, like the 
Carabids and tiger-beetles, undoubtedly kill many noxious insects by their 
general insect-feeding habits. 
The great order Coleoptera is divided into two primary groups, some¬ 
times called suborders, namely, Coleoptera genuina, the typical or true 
beetles, including those species in which the mouth-parts are all present and 
the front of the head is not elongated into a beak or rostrum, and the 
Rhynchophora , snout-beetles (p. 294), which have the front part of the 
head more or less extended and projecting as a beak or rostrum, and the 
mouth-parts with the labrum (upper lip) so reduced as to be indistinguish¬ 
able and the palpi reduced to mere stiff jointless small processes. To 
this latter suborder belong those beetles familiarly known as weevils, bill- 
bugs, bark-beetles, and snout-beetles. 
KEY TO SECTIONS AND TRIBES OF COLEOPTERA GENUINA. 
With five tarsal segments in all the feet (with rare exceptions). Section Pentamera. (p. 252). 
With the antennae slender, thread-like, with distinct, cylindrical segments. 
(Carnivorous beetles.) Tribe Adephaga (p. 252). 
With the antennae thickened gradually or abruptly toward the tip. 
(Club-horned beetles.) Tribe Clavicornia (p. 258). 
With the antennae serrate or toothed. 
(Saw-horned beetles.) Tribe Serricornia (p. 265). 
With the antennae composed of a stem-like basal part, and a number of flat blade-like 
segments at the tip. (Blade-horned beetles.) Tribe Lamellicornia (p. 272). 
