280 
ICHNEUMON. 
; It was the want of an exact knowledge of the 
genus Ichneumon that proved so considerable an 
embarrassment to the older entomologists, who 
having seen a brood of Ichneumons proceed from 
the chrysalis of a Butterfly, could not but con- 
clude that the production of insects was rather a 
variable and uncertain operation of Nature tlian a 
regular continuation of tlie same species. The 
observations however of Swammerdam, Malpighi, 
Roesel, and others have long since removed the 
difficulties which formerly obscured the history of 
the Insect tribe. 
