THE PHYSOPODA. 179 



pies of a small group^ which has given nearly as much 

 trouble to the systematic entomologist as the curious 

 Bee-parasites_, which furnished us with the subject of 

 a short chapter at the close of the Coleoptera. 



When we examine the mouth of one of these little 

 creatures^ we are^ in fact, puzzled as to whether it 

 should be referred to the biting, or to the sucking 

 . section of the class of Insects ; the lower surface of 

 the head is bent back towards the breast, and the 

 mouth is placed at its hinder extremity, presenting 

 such a close resemblance to the same parts in the 

 Homopterous Rhynchota, the only suctorial insects 

 with which our little friends can be placed, that 

 almost all the older entomologists referred them to 

 that group. Even in the structure of some of the 

 organs of the mouth there is a good deal to bear out 

 this view of their relations, for the mandibles are 

 reduced to the form of slender bristles j and although 

 the maxillse are less altered in their form, there seems 

 to be every reason to doubt whether the creatures 

 can make use of their jaws as biting organs. Both 

 the maxillse and labium, however, are furnished with 

 jointed palpi, which is never the case in the Rhyn- 

 chota, and the general structure of the mouth points 

 to a location amongst the Mandibulate insects, with 

 which the insects are now placed by most entomolo- 

 gists, their affinities appearing to be with the Ortho- 

 ptera and Neuroptera, with which they are sometimes 

 included in a single order, whilst many writers, and 

 especially those of our own country, regard them as 

 constituting an order by themselves. 



In these curious little insects the head projects 

 considerably in front of the thorax, and bears close 

 to its anterior angles a pair of large compound eyes. 



