190 Mr. Shuckard^s Monograph of the Dorylidae, 



same time makes the whole of Latreille's Diploptera intervene be- 

 tween them and the MutiUida. I am prepared with Mr. Hah day to 

 consider them as constituting a family, but certainly not to be united 

 at present with the Ants, nor yet can they be incorporated with the 

 tribe Mutillid^, miscalled a family, which distinctly contains several 

 natural families, but they are a connecting link between the two. In 

 favour of my opinion of their being as intimately allied to the Mu- 

 tillidce as to the Ants, I may in the first place adduce the argumentum 

 ad verecundiam, — the opinions of some celebrated entomologists, — of 

 Linnaeus, Fabricius, and Latreille. It is true, Linnaeus first placed 

 the insect, which for several years singly constituted the genus 

 Dorylus, in the genus Vespa*, but he immediately afterwards 

 transferred it to Mutillaf, with this note however — " Singularis spe- 

 cies, forte hujus generis." The first time that Fabricius notices it 

 is in his Mantissa J, for he does not mention it in his two preceding 

 works, and there he says, " Hujus generis videtur, quamvis habitus 

 differt, nondum rite examinata. Potius forte ad Tiphias pertinet :" 

 and in his next work, the Entomol. Systemat., he constructs for it the 

 genus Dorylus, and very truly says, " Genus singulare, instrumentis 

 cibariis, mandibulis exceptis, minutissimis, attamen distinctis :" 

 and he here places the genus between the last of his genera of Ants 

 and the genus Mutilla, and subsequently made no alteration in it 

 except by the addition of two species, the claims of which will be 

 examined below. Latreille invariably throughout all his works 

 placed it with the Mutillida, and we may conclude from this that his 

 views never vacillated regarding its position ; for although his works 

 present a gradual and progressive alteration as to the grouping of 

 insects — not always for the better — yet in this instance he was uni- 

 formly the same ; and swayed doubtlessly by his observation in his 

 * Genera Crustaceor.§,' where he says of the two genera, of which 

 he had there formed a distinct section of the family, " Labidorum 

 et Dorylorum ceconomia latet, et masculi tantum noti ; feminse forsan 

 apterse et solitarise degentes. Si, ut formicarise, societates inirent, 

 frequentius quam masculi colligerentur." But he here places them 

 in close approximation to the genus Formica. Jurine, although the 

 founder of the genus Labidus, can scarcely be adduced as an author- 

 ity for systematic distribution ; yet he also places them in close 

 approach to the Ants, but before Cynips, and puts the genus Labidus 

 in juxtaposition with Dorylus, of which no doubt was ever entcr- 



* Museum, Ludov. Ulric, Regin. p. 412. 



t System. Nat. ii. 9G7. J Tom. i. p. 313. 18. 1787. 



§ Genera Crust, et Insect, p. 124. Annotatio. 



