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 
aday. For this great intent of active being it bursts forth with its expansive 
organs of flight, and with its antenne 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, which 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 
antenne, 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 Peckii, 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, thata 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. Soc. vol. xi. 
