SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 425 
its livery and general aspect : a circumstance which 
evidently proves that it was part of the plan of the 
CiiEATOitto place them in contrast with each other. Were 
I to pursue this subject further, it might not be difficult 
to show that were the tribes of Mandibulata or of Haus- 
tellata also arranged in columns, analogies would be dis- 
coverable between their corresponding points : this seems 
to be Mr. MacLeay's opinion a ; and it is worth your 
pursuing the subject further, which cannot but prove 
very interesting. 
But though the general analogy of these columns is 
that of Order to Order, yet individual species in each 
Order sometimes find their representatives in a different 
one from that with which they generally are contrasted ; 
— thus some Diptera, as Culex, by the scales on the veins 
and other parts of their wings, are analogous to Lepi- 
doptera rather than Hymenoptera b ; as is also the genus 
Psychoda by its form. 
We come now to the consideration of a question not 
easy to be decided, — I mean, which Order of insects is 
to have the precedency, and which is the connecting link 
that unites them to Vertebrate animals. 
Linne (and Mr. MacLeay seems in this to coincide 
with him) considered the Colcoptera as at the head of the 
Class of insects ; De Geer thought the Lepidoptera en- 
titled to that honour ; Latreille and Cuvier begin with 
the Aptera : Marcel de Serres favours the Orthoptcra c ; 
and others, on account of their admirable economy, have 
made the Hymenoptera the princes of the insect world d . 
' Hot. Entomolog. 437. • Vol. III. p. G44. 
c Mem. du Mus, 1819. 136. d Rifferschw. dc Ins. Genital. 9. 
