348 Mr. Newport on the Natural History 



male appears to be centred in the consummation of a single object, — identical 

 with that of the female, and of absolute need to enforce the evolution of the 

 materials of the ova within her into new organisms. To this the functions of 

 all the newly-expanded structures in the male are mediately subservient. For 

 this alone the little Stylops enjoys its brief existence of a few hours on the 

 wing, — a life of the utmost activity and excitement, — and perishes in less than 

 a day. For this great intent of active being it bursts forth with its expansive 

 organs of flight, and with its antennae and its organs of vision more exten- 

 sively developed, perhaps, than in any other insect. Vision seems to be of 

 paramount importance to it. Each mass of eyes is placed on a footstalk, and 

 projects widely from the head, of which the two form the greater proportion. 

 Each constitutes from two-thirds to three-fourths of a sphere, so that the 

 sense of vision, as in the male of the hive-bee, and in that of the glow-worm, 

 can be employed at the same instant in every direction. May not the omni- 

 scient object of this excessive development of the eyes in Stylops, be the de- 

 tection on the wing of those Hymenoptera which carry about with them 

 through the air the apodal female that awaits impregnation ? The assign- 

 ment of such reason for this extraordinary development of the eyes in the 

 male, wbich organs are entirely absent in the female, may not, perhaps, be 

 inconsistent with the truth. The imago Stylops lives not for itself, but for 

 the perpetuation of its kind. It takes no food, as possibly the passage to its 

 alimentary canal is then closed. Yet all its organs of consensual function, its 

 antennee, its palpi, its eyes, are developed to their utmost extent, relatively to 

 its other structures, and its transient life is one of incessant action. Dr. Peck 

 described its ceaseless agitation as the " tremblings of eager desire*," and 

 all the facts of its natural history support this conclusion. Peck says that his 

 insect, Xenos Pechii, which he confined under a watch-glass, " coursed round 

 its prison with surprising trepidation as long as it lived, which was but a few 

 hours." Mr. Dale says, that a Stylops caught by himself on the wing {Stylops 

 Dalii, Curtis), when placed under a glass in the sun, " became quite furious 

 in its confinement, and never ceased running about for two hours. The elytra 

 or processes were kept in quick vibration, as well as the wings ; it buzzed 

 against the sides of the glass with its head touching it, and tumbled about 



* Trans. Linn. Sue. vol. xi. 



