79 



plant ; and considering that there may be 100,000 species of such plants in the 

 world, the number of insects would amount to 600,000. 



In the Royal Entomological Cabinet at Berlin, there are 28,000 species of 

 Beetles ; and from the presumed superiority in point of extent of the coleopterous 

 order, Burmeister assumes that the actually known amount of insect species, and 

 their relative proportions of number, in the different orders, may thus be distri- 

 buted in round figures : — 



Coleoptera 36,000 



Lepidoptera 12,000 



Hymenoptera 12,000 



Diptera..... 10,000 



Hemiptera 4,000 



Varia 4,000 



78,000 

 Stephens, with his usual accuracy, establishes the following numbers of each 

 of the Orders, as regards British species of insects : they must, however, be con- 

 siderably increased by the addition of many minute Hymenoptera and Diptera, 

 noticed since the publication of his Catalogue: — 



Coleoptera 3,300 



Lepidoptera 1,838 



Hymenoptera 2,054 



Diptera 1,671 



Hemiptera 605 



Varia -. 544 



British species 10,012 



By a parity of reasoning on this distribution, it is manifest that the numerical 

 strength of the orders is comparatively far greater than Burmeister calculates : 

 we need only illustrate the two first, to arrive at a similar conclusion with regard 

 to the others. Stephens makes the Coleoptera not quite twice the number of the 

 Lepidoptera, while Burmeister makes the Coleoptera three times more numerous 

 than the Lepidoptera. 



That good christian and excellent naturalist, John Ray, (to whose memory 

 the equally great Cuvier paid a tribute when he styled him " le premier veritable 

 naturaliste pour le regne animal"), says, in his Wisdom of God, — with great cau- 

 tion, however, not to overstep the bounds of truth or the modesty of conjecture — 

 " supposing, then, there be a thousand several sorts of insects in this island and 

 the sea near it, if the same proportion holds between the insects, natives of Eng- 

 land and those of the rest of the world, as doth between plants, domestic and exo- 

 tic, (that is, I guess, decuple), the species of insects on the whole earth— land and 



