CHAPTER II. 



CLASSIFICATION OF DIPTERA, WITH AN INTRODUCTORY AC- 

 COUNT OF THE ANCIENT AND MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF 

 INSECT A. 



The classification of all animals must necessarily be subject to 

 continual change and re-arrangement, as the discovery of new species 

 and genera, and the study of known forms, takes place. It is usually 

 a matter of no little interest to compare the ancient and modern 

 methods of arrangement, and as the Uiptera, with the rest of the 

 Insecta, have been subject to much alteration in their systematic 

 position, we will here consider the old modes, and also in some 

 degree follow the rise of Entomology. Several hundreds of years B.C., 

 insects had attracted the study of the philosophers, but as all the 

 works were burnt in the libraries, we are comparatively in the dark 

 upon the subject, prior to the time when the great naturalist, Aristotle, 

 wrote. We glean from his writings that much was known before his 

 time of the subject of Entomology. Pliny also tells us that Hippo- 

 crates, in the Soth Olympiad (5th century B.C.), wrote on insects. 

 To Aristotle we are indebted for the first account of the Diptera ; he 

 divided them into two great sections, making the defensive weapon 

 ihe point of difference. Section I. he called Emprosthoccntra, and 

 II. Opisthocetitra ; the former, he said, possessed an oral sting, the 

 latter an anal. 



A great number of men immediately following Aristotle wrote on 

 insects, both in Greece and Rome, amongst whom we may mention 

 Democritus, Meander of Heraclea, Virgil, Fabianus, Pliny, and 

 M, Varro. 



Pliny classified insects into three groups : 



1. Flying insects, 



2. Naked-winged insects, 

 and 3. Protected-winged insects, 



his eleventh book being entirely devoted to insects. Some few 

 unimportant writers followed, but until we reach the sixteenth century 



