Packard.] INSECTS AS MIMICS. 283 



still. Here again we see the isolation of the Coleoptcra 

 from the other suborders with which it is connected. The 

 suborders below it, by an exact parallel with the case above 

 mentioned, reach up and connect themselves by these re- 

 markable analogies with the Coleoptera, which do not in 

 turn assume any of their forms. Some Orthoptera are very 

 coleopterous-like, and some Hemiptera are very coleopter- 

 ous-like. The reverse cannot be said. So the Diptera and 

 Lepidoptera, as they advance in their family forms, are con- 

 stantly throwing out hints and suggestions of forms that 

 seem very strange to them, but become generalized in the 

 group that tops them. Thus in the broad, irregular, net- 

 veined, neuropterous fore wing, which becomes smaller and 

 thicker in the orthopterous Blatta, and still more coleopter- 

 ous in the hemipterous Corixa, we arrive at the perfected 

 elytron, with its regular, obsolete veins and new protective 

 function. 



"Most of the examples above mentioned are familiar to 

 entomologists, and others will occur no doubt to illustrate 

 the subject more fully. 



''IVIan)' authors ha\e agreed that the suborders of insects 

 can be arranged into two series or groups, often called Man- 

 dibulata and Haustellata, though disagreeing as to the rela- 

 tive rank of these two divisions, and the true places the 

 suborders should occupy within them. It is enough for my 

 purpose to assume that there are two such series, though 

 believing that the two culminate in the llymenoptera and 

 Coleoptcra respectivel}', in the succession that I have indi- 

 cated above. 



"What have we now in common with both, and which 

 shall reunite this seeming polarity in the two series of sub- 

 orders? There is needed a group which, while retaining its 

 own strong fundamental features, and maintaining an equal 

 footing with its equivalent groups, shall have besides the 

 strongest analogies to those groups farthest removed by 



27 



