SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 427 
fers a degree of pre-eminence upon the latter, symboli- 
zing the feline race, which seems to throw no small weight 
into their scale. 
There are two Classes of Vertebrate animals with 
which insects may appear to claim kindred. Thejishes, 
and the reptiles. Fishes in their fins exhibit no small 
resemblance to insects ; the pectoral and ventral ones 
representing their arms and legs, and the dorsal ones 
their wings: Pegasus Draco in this last respect is not 
unlike a butterfly a . In some genera (Osiracion, Pega- 
sus, &c), like insects the animal is covered with a hard 
shell or crust, formed by the union of its scales. The 
oral cirrlii of many fishes seem analogous to the palpi 
of insects ; and in some a pair longer than the rest re- 
present their antennce h . Another circumstance in which 
insects and fishes correspond, is the wonderful variety of 
forms, often in the greatest degree eccentric, that occurs 
in both Classes. Some of the cyclostomous fishes, as 
Ammoccetas, Gastrobranchus, are supposed to connect the 
fishes with the Afinulosa, by means of the Annelida as 
an osculant Class c , which Mr. MacLeay regards as the 
passage to the Chilopoda d : his Mandibulata he con- 
siders as passing into the Anoplura by means of some 
osculant Order as yet unknown e . But 1 must confess 
I can see no good ground for this last transition : — the 
Anoplura appear much more nearly related to the Psocidce, 
especially by the apterous Atropos pulsatoria f than to any 
a N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxv. 115— xxvii. t. M. 8./. 1. 
b Piso Hist. Nat. 63. Curui 1 . Jundia v. 
c N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xxvii. 235. Hor. Entomolog. 203. 
d Ibid. 281 — . t Ibid. 354, 390, 397. 
f This insect, except in its antennae, so nearly resembles a Nir- 
miu; that it might be mistaken for one. See Coquebert Illuetr. 
Icon. i. /. W.f. 14. 
