27<) THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the royal blood to entitle him to the throne, or, if his lineage be too 

 strong, had we not better establish a democracy of insects and, by the 

 suffrages of tortured animal life, relegate this buzzing busybody to his 

 proper sphere ? 



Seriously, however, I am led to inquire whether there is not strong 

 reason why we should make an effort to avoid the expression of lineal 

 rank in groups of animals. The most specialized are often degraded in 

 many respects, and there is no basis for the expression of rank except 

 their phylogeny, and the higher groups of insects are certainly not con- 

 nected in any lineal series, but represent divergent, or in some cases, 

 perhaps, nearly parallel branches from some common ancestral form or 

 group of connected forms. To place any one group as the head of a 

 lineal series is to give an expression that is not present in nature. 



Lists of insects may have to be written in a lineal order, but can we 

 not emphasize more strongly the point that this order is not an expression 

 of natural relationship ? 



Mr. Smith thought that the line of argument adopted by Messrs. 

 Aldrich and Townsend was inconclusive, and that the article referred to 

 carried with it its own refutation. He thought Mr. Osborn was correct in 

 that the orders should be placed parallel, but that groups or families were 

 more highly developed in some orders than in others. Mere specialization 

 is never a test of rank in itself, and any line of argument that places the 

 Hippoboscidae at the head of the insects as the highest in rank, is simply 

 unworthy of attention, since it omits the intellectual or nervous develop- 

 ment as a factor. 



The Secretary read the following paper : — 



THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN MOLE-CRICKET— 



GRYLLOTALPA BOREALIS. 



BY E. W. DORAN, PH. D., COLLEGE PARK, MD. 



Although this is a common insect in many parts of the United States, 

 it is not generally found in great numbers in any locality, and, notwith- 

 standing its general distribution, the various stages of the insect seem not 

 to have been described or figured. 



While I am not yet able to clear up all the points in its history, I 

 have studied the insect in all its stages, though I have not reared it from 

 the egg to maturity, on account of the time required for it to develop — in 

 all probability three years. 



