322 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 



out the organized world ; and it is especially marked in the whole of the 

 hexapod Articulata. I shall attempt to exemplify its prevalence, and to 

 show the connexion of particular instincts with peculiarities of structure, by 

 comparing the general anatomy of the Meloes with the facts of their natural 

 history, and these with corresponding facts of structure and habit in other 

 insects. 



In this way applied, the truths of natural history may be rendered invaluable 

 to science, as data on which a correct knowledge of the laws of creation and 

 life may be established. I would thus attempt to bring our acquaintance 

 with the habits of species, when compared with their organization, to help us 

 to understand the nature of Instinct; as I have heretofore* endeavoured to 

 apply the laws of physiology to aid us in understanding the comparative 

 anatomy of the nervous system of the Articulata, and, through this, to assist 

 in explaining that of our own bodies. Natural history, which has often been 

 regarded as little other than merely a pleasing pursuit, may thus be made to 

 occupy its proper position as an important branch of useful knowledge, and 

 mainly help to demonstrate the connexion which subsists between structure 

 and function, and function and the instincts of animals. 



Of the Larva. 



We have seen in the former memoir that the larvae of the Meloes are active 

 little hexapods, of very diminutive size, and that they attach themselves para- 

 sitically to the bodies of other insects, chiefly Hymenoptera. This remarkable 

 fact in the economy of the tribe is one of £he greatest importance, not only 

 with reference to the development of these insects, but also to that of the 

 whole of the Articulata, in connexion with the general laws of organization ; 

 since there are still naturalists who cling to the opinion, that the diminutive 

 hexapods found on the bodies of the Hymenoptera are not the young o( Afeloe, 

 but are adult parasitic forms. Leon Dufour, as we have seen, in 1828, even 

 described them as a distinct genus, by the name of Triungulinus, and arranged 

 them with the Pediculif. Mr. Westwood J, ten years afterwards, adopted the 

 same view, which he has not hitherto repudiated ; and the same has again 



* Phil. Trans. 1832, 1834, 1843. Todd's Cyclop. Anatom. and Physiology, Art. " Insecta," 1839. 

 t Annales des Scien. Nat. 1828. I Introduction, &c. vol. i. 1839, p. 303. 



