88 The Rev. Ww. Kırzr on a new Order of Insects. 
established. The insect'appertaining to this tribe which he dis- 
covered, he has described under the name of Xenos Vesparum*; 
but he seems himself to have entertained no suspicion of its not 
belonging to any of the present orders, since without hesitation 
or remark he assigns it a place next to Ichneumon}. When I 
first called the attention of entomologists to a British insect of 
Neuropterous genera. The wings are veined in a peculiar manner, without reticulations, 
in some degree like those of Lepidoptera. The antenne resemble much those of the. 
Tinea tribe, and the tibiæ of many of them are armed with the two pair of spurs observable 
in so many of the Moths; but they have no spiral tongue, the wings though hairy have no 
scales, the under wings are folded longitudinally, and the head, besides the usual compound 
eyes, has three stemmata. If these remarks appear to entomologists well founded, and it 
be thought right to consider Phryganea as constituting a new order, I think it might be 
. ‘distinguished, since the wings of all the known species are -— by the | name a Tri- 
 choptera. > 
It will appear, I fear, an unreasonable addition to this already long note, but I cannot 
help further observing upon this subject, that the student in entomology labours under pecu- 
liar disadvantages to which the botanist is a stranger, from the small number of orders into 
which the class of insects is divided. These animals, I imagine, fall not far short of plants 
in number of species, and yet we have only eight orders under which to arrange them; 
whereas the botanist has twenty-four classes divided into innumerable orders, which shortens 
his labour wonderfully. This is a powerful plea for the adoption of new orders, where 
nature leads the way ; and I think if each order were divided into denominate sections (by 
which I mean sections that have a name) it would be a great improvement, and very much 
facilitate the study of this science. M. Latreille has led the way here, and done much for 
us, but, as is often the case with new inventions, his system is not sufficiently simple for 
general use: his names, likewise, have not that harmony and uniformity of termination 
which is necessary to make them easily retained by the memory. If we adopted a patro- 
nymic appellation for these sections, for instance, Coleoptera Scarabeide, Coleoptera 
Staphylinide, Coleoptera Spheridiade, Orthoptera Gryllide, &c. it would be liable to 
no objection of this kind: and the subsections, rather than the primary ones, might be 
founded upon the number of the joints of the tarsi, and those genera that are nearly re- 
lated, for instance Aleochara Gravenh. and Pselaphus Fab. might be kept together, instead 
of being placed widely asunder, as they are upon the present system, 
* Fn. Etrusc. Mantiss. Append. p. 114. 
t Insectum novi generis Ichneumoni proximum, ibid, 
this 
