1864.] 241 



adopt the exactly opposite arrangement. For Coleoptera have the front 

 wings entirely elytriforni, Heniiptera (heteroptera) only about one-half 

 elytriform, and Orthoptera scarcely or but slightly elytriform. These 

 groups therefore, according to Dana's own principles, ought to stand 

 1 Orthoptera, 2 Hemiptera, 3 Coleoptera, instead of 1 Coleoptera, 2 

 Hemiptera, 3 Orthoptera. But this would necessitate the abandonment 

 of the idea, that the Cursorial Orthopters are coleopteroid and the 

 Ambulatorial Orthopters hemipteroid, or else destroy the symmetry of 

 the analogies that run through the whole system. Consequently, for 

 the sake of symmetry, the very principle upon which the whole system 

 professes to be founded, has been violated. 



Although Prof. Dana takes no notice whatever of the above-men- 

 tioned very remarkable " Cephalization" of the front legs in certain 

 families and genera of insects, he observes that " as there are ptero- 

 prosthenic and ^J^'rometasthenic insects, so there are por^oprosthenic, 

 or those in which the anterior legs are stronger than the posterior, and 

 porfometasthenic, or those in which the posterior are the main organs 

 of locomotion. Fleas and grasshoppers," he continues, " as they use 

 their hind legs for leaping, are examples of the latter ; and this sthenic 

 difference in the feet, though of less weight as a mark of grade than 

 that in the wings, is of real value among inferior subdivisions," (p. 14.) 

 He subsequently remarks that the fact of the Grasshoppers, &c. (Orthop- 

 tera Saltatoria) " being strongly podometasthenic is a mark of low in- 

 feriority," (p. 25.) 



It is observable that in the single Order Coleoptera, the genus Lac- 

 cophilus in the family Dytiscidae, the genus Scirtes in the family Das- 

 cyllidae, the genus Orchesia in the family Melandryidae, the genus 

 Orchestes in the family Curculionidae, the whole subfamily Halticidae, 

 and the genus Blepharida in the family Chrysomelidae, are all " podo- 

 metasthenic" and have thickened and saltatorial hind legs. If this 

 peculiarity is really, as Dana asserts, " a mark of low inferiority," it is 

 singular that it should occur in Coleoptera in so apparently capricious 

 a manner. Even when it runs through a whole subfamily, as in Halti- 

 cidae, it would be difficult to give any other reason than the absence of 

 saltatory power, why Gralerucidae, which do not jump, are superior to 

 the very closely allied Halticidae, which jump vigorously. 



