The nourishment of the Lamellicorn beetles appears to me to be most perfect in kind. Mould or dung can be regarded as a fully prepared aliment, or, as it were, a minced and cooked meat with greens prepared by Nature, like as Man restores it by art. Thus the lower Thricozoa, e. g. the Mice, eat the crudest vegetable substances, such as roots and seeds; those that stand higher, grass and leaves; then snails, worms, and insects; finally flesh, and last of all fruits, as the Bears and Apes. But Man lets the crude matters ferment or reduces them to rapid decomposition by cooking, whereby a mixed kind of food results, which bears obviously the greatest resemblance to dung which, as just observed, is a food cooked by nature.
According to these considerations I now arrange what have been called Beetles in the following manner into divisions drawn from philosophical principles.
The Beetles again commence, like the whole class of Flies, from below, and the inferior kinds pass therefore parallel to the Tracheo-and Dictyoptera, while the superior project above them, as was the case also in the preceding classes.
In a more remote manner also they repeat the lower classes, namely, the Protozoa, Conchozoa, Worms and Crustacea, a fact which is, properly speaking, self-evident, and which is rendered clear by the following table. We have thus:
Order I. Tracheopteroid Coleoptera—Phytophaga.
Order II. Dictyopteroid Coleoptera—Zoophaga.
Order III. Ceratopteroid Coleoptera—Rypophaga.
It can also be said; the first correspond to the Worms, the second to the Crustacea, the third to the Flies.
Lastly, it may still be said; the first correspond to the Protozoa, the second to the Conchozoa, the third to the Ancyliozoa.
Order 7. Tracheopteroid Beetles—Phytophaga.
3527. Body cylindrical, head mostly long, antennæ setiform, maxillary teeth obtuse, tarsi mostly tetrameral.
They gnaw hard seeds, leaves, and wood, and mostly live concealed. The larvæ almost or entirely apodal.