APPEXDIX. 591 



puncta, scahrities, &c. only. Thus the thorax of an Apion might Le foveolate, 

 and yet Iccvis ; and if it should chance to be neither, the absence of the former 

 character could not at present be expressed without a jieriphrasis. At present 

 we are forced to say hatxl striatus, canalicidatus, &c., which is contrary to the 

 Linneau rule of not using negatives. Would cequatus, in English, even, 

 do? ... . 



" I am, &c., 



'* W. Spence." 



The following is Mr. Kirby's answer to the preceding letter : — 



"Barbara, November 27th, 1809. 



" My dear Sir, — I now mean to take my revenge, and show you that I also 

 can write a long letter, a faculty which, from your late experience, you may 

 begin to doubt my possessing. I shall not, however waste my time and yours 

 in preliminary matters, but go directly to the unanswered parts of your letters. 

 I shall begin with your last, by saying that I admit the validity of your reason- 

 ing with respect to Ilium and Ischium, and had on the last made a note in 

 pencil, 'melius trochanter.' But if this is considered as part of the thigh, 

 would not a term be necessary to distinguish what is commonly called the 

 thigh ? Perhaps it would be better to consider the trochanter as per se, and so 

 arrang'e coxa, trochanter, femur, one under the other, as primary parts of the 

 Pedes. I cannot look at your letters without wishing I had been with you 

 during your examination and dissection of insects, to have taken some of your 

 labour off your shoulders. Your success has been answerable to your pains, 

 and no small degree of light will be thrown upon Entomology by your disco- 

 veries and observations. I must brush up my memory a little, for I seem to 

 have forgot the reference of many of our terms. As I go on with this letter, 

 1 propose to write the definitions of the terms of our anatomical table, which I 

 shall then send to you for your observations. 



" I admit the justice of your observations, that the joint at the base of the 

 claw-joint in Cerumhyx, &c., is perfectly analogous to that at the base of the 

 thigh, but I think neither of them a true trochanter ; which all the joints have 

 independent of it. Is this an anomaly, or are we to look upon it (regarding 

 the thigh as the tibia, with Dr. Wilmot), as analogous with the fibula? I 

 strongly suspect he is correct in this opinion, for though the fibula in large 

 animals is parallel with the tibial bone, it seems in other respects to answer to 

 this, and in many insects it seems to run in that direction. I have no anato- 

 mical book, so I may speak rather incorrectly, for I forget whether the name 

 of the bone parallel with the fibula be called tibia or not. Observe — the 

 insects that have this anarthrous joint at the base of the claw-joint have no 

 onychium or pulvillus, or else an obsolete one. With respect to tliis term ony- 

 chium, I must observe that it is by no means correct, for onychium signifies 

 a little claw ; now even in the Lucanides this little joint is temiinated by 

 bristles rather than claws, and I believe in the majority of genera it has 

 nothing like claws. I am not wedded to pulvillus, which is certainly not 

 generally proper, and yet one term ought to distinguish the same part in all 

 cases. It seems to me more analogous to the ball of the foot than any other 

 part, but planta would generate confusion ; what think you of plantula, its 

 diminutive ? Now I am upon the sul)ject of legs, I will observe that the 

 j/art you notice in the anterior tibia? of Lamprima (male) is one of the spinulce. 

 I don't recollect whether in answer to your remarks upon antenna;, and my 

 terms radicle, scape, stalklet, and flaqellum, I observed that these were not 

 meant to be applied universally to the three first joints, and the whole of 

 the rest, but only in cases where they arc remarkable, which, I believe, are 

 more numerous than you seem to think, for you will find in most ot the 



