MR. A. MURRAY ON ORTHOPTEROUS INSECTS. 97 



On the early Stages of Development of Orthopterous Insects. By 

 Andrew Murray, Esq., F.L.S., Assistant Secretary to the 

 Royal Horticultm'al Society. 



[Eead Nov. 20, 1862.] 



I DO not know why it should be so, but I am inclined to think that 

 it is the fact, that although naturalists and scientific men are neces- 

 sarily as liable to error as the rest of mankind, they are more re- 

 luctant to acknowledge their errors. Of course, in the abstract 

 and general, they will acknowledge, as much as you please, they 

 are all "miserable sinners"; but touch them on specific points, 

 and, recalcitrant as all mankind are to such confessions, the natu- 

 ralist, I think, kicks hardest. It may be that it costs him more 

 to make them. His works are the children of his brain ; he has 

 travailed hard to bring them forth : they are the restdt of long 

 thought and laborious inv^estigation ; and the more time and pains 

 he has bestowed upon them, it is natural that the greater should 

 be his reluctance to acknowledge them to be abortive. It is wrong, 

 however, to speak of it as an acknowledgment. If he is once con- 

 vinced that he is wrong, he is not less ready to acknowledge it 

 than other men. But the difficulty is, to convince him. There 

 are some men whom it is impossible to convince ; they rest on the 

 conclusion to which they have once come with all the unreason- 

 ing obstinacy of consistency ; there are others who are only 

 unconvinceable after they have committed themselves to print. 

 The majority, however, are only difficult to convince. For myself, 

 I claim to be one of these reasonable men. When facts and argu- 

 ments have all declared against me, and I have no longer a leg to 

 stand upon, I wall handsomely acknowledge myself to have been 

 in the wrong ; but until then, I find it very difficult " to see the 

 matter in that light." 



This is my present predicament. Some years ago I published 

 a few observations on the metamorphoses of Orthopterous and 

 Hemipterous insects, which received more attention than they 

 deserved, from their concurring with and supporting what appeared 

 to be the views of one of our heroes scientics, Professor Owen. 



During the past summer I have made some further observations, 

 which have shown me that I had certainly misread the facts whicli 

 I saw ; and they have also suggested to me the doubt that I 

 may be wrong in the conclusions to which I had arrived. These 

 conclusions did not, however, rest alone on the facts which I 

 had misread, but on independent observations made by Professor 

 Owen ; and it may thus be that the views which I formerly pro- 



LINN. PROC. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. VII. 7 



