100 The Rev. Wy. KIRBY on a new Order of Insects. 
The wihgs next claim our attention: these have nothing in 
common with the anelytrous orders, differing from them in fi- 
gure, substance, and in veins*: therefore the Stylopide cannot 
belong to the Hymenoptera, amongst which Rossi has placed 
* The veining of the wings, under certain restrictions, has been assumed as affording 
fundamental characters of an arrangement of the Hymenoptera and Dipiera orders, 
(which he gives as a new idea,) by the ingenious and learned Professor Jurine, of Geneva, 
in a work recently published entitled *€ Nouvelle Méthode de classer les Hyménoptéres 
et les Diptéres.” This excellent author, when he says ‘* Aucun auteur, à ce que je 
crois, n'a examiné avec assez d'attention ces parties pour y trouver les bases d'une mé- 
thode qu'on püt leur appliquer," (Introduct. p. 2.) seems not to be aware that a British 
Entomologist was the real inventor of such a system. But it is but justice to claim for our 
countryman the honour to which he is entitled; and I do this without the smallest wish to 
derogate from the merits of Professor Jurine, who in the work just alluded to has proved 
himself one of the first Entomologists of the age. The following are Harris's own words : 
* I have kept close to the outlines of the system of Linnzus, so far as his method was 
- agreeable to, and did not interfere with, the plan which I have adopted, of a strict adherence 
to a natural system, separating the classes by such nice though strong distinctions, that the 
observer at first sight of an insect (if it be of the Diptera or Hymenoptera) shall be 
capable of not only knowing the class that it refers to, but at the same time to what order 
and section of that class, and this by the wings only. 
*€ It is to the tendons of the wings that I am beholden for the discovery of the numerous 
species (particularly of the Musca) contained in this work ; for, having collected on a cer- 
tain time a great number, I wanted to separate the species, and take away the duplicates, 
` but knew not where to begin for want of some plan or method to proceed upon, and such a 
one as would effectually prevent the taking a male and a female of one kind for two distinet 
species. I at length perceived, by the different disposition of the tendons, that there were 
a certain number of orders or sorts of wings, and immediately proceeded to divide them 
respectively. Thus the difficulty was unravelled ; for it was now but a pleasing task to. 
select the various species of each order, male and female, and place them together. It was 
therefore a prevailing circumstance with me to insert drawings of the wings according to 
their various orders, that whoever may intend to collect the Diptera and Hymenoptera for 
the future, may have the opportunity of the same benefit and assistance from them which. 
I have experienced." — Harris's Exposition of English Insects, Introduct. p. i: ii. 
Harris was evidently illiterate, and therefore could not give that form to his ideas that a 
man of better education would have done ; but he was an attentive observer of nature, and © 
as such is entitled to the merit of his own discoveries, 
them, 
