316 



THE CAUSES WHICH 



In the current cycle one last natural selection has begun to 

 operate of which man is the delegated agent, and the demesnes 

 of oak and heather, home of the Druid and Saxon, are fast 

 ceding their primitive mysteries before the steady march of 

 building, agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, and domestica- 

 tion of species ; handmaidens of an era of civilisation, the 

 creative wonders of whose potent wand can scarcely compensate 

 an entomologist for the loss of his breezy heath and sylvan 

 shade where the Fritillaries once sunned, or the lonely classic 



fen-land where the Large Copper Butterfly, Chrysophanes Hip- 

 potho'd, variety Dispar, once flew. 



Edward Newman, in imitation of MacLeay, has left us an 

 ingenious circular plan (see above fig.) uniting the metamorphic, 

 alar, and maxillary systems of authors, that may also teach us some- 

 thing of the insensible descent of insects, and suggest a family tree. 



The substance of a last contribution on the subject of meta- 

 morphosis by this lamented author is interesting. I abstract it 

 in substance from the Magazine of Entomology which he so long 

 conducted. Amorpha, including flies, butterflies, and moths, has 

 a chrysalis provided with neither mouth nor locomotive organs, 

 which appears to act in the capacity of a mould in the forma- 

 tion of the imago. The penultimate state of flies is different 

 in different families; in some it is an oblong smooth object. 



