﻿6 BRITISH BEETLES. 



of these have short feet armed with hooks ; others, merely 

 rows of minute, bristling appendages, serving for foot- 

 hold ; and in the remainder the extremities of the body- 

 are furnished with suckers. The head is occasionally 

 distinct, Mitli antennre and eyes; and they have mostly 

 red blood, circulating by a double system of complicated 

 vessels. They live in the ground (sometimes in calca- 

 reous tubes), and in fresh or salt water, some being am- 

 phibious; and the greater number lay eggs from which 

 the young are hatched, but the leeches and earth-worms 

 deposit sacs containing many of the young. 



There remains one other great division, the Radiatn ; 

 but, as none of its members can be mistaken for any of 

 the Articulata, we can dismiss it without further notice 

 than that it contains the very lowest of the animal king- 

 dom, — such as the Sea-urchin, Star-fish, Sea-anemone, 

 Polyps, and Infusoria. These may be shortly charac- 

 terized as composed of similar parts radiating from a 

 central nucleus; with circulation and nervous system 

 either absent or at best very obscure ; and possessing no 

 fixed standard as to sexes, growth, or organs of nutri- 

 tion. 



The word insect, meaning " divided," is applicable to 

 all the Articulata, so far as a name extends, but it has, 

 in all languages, been given to the class to which it now 

 belongs; the Latin insecta, Greek entoma, French in- 

 secte, and German Insecten, having all the same signifi- 

 cation. At one time the Crustacea, AracJmida, and 

 Myriapoda were included with the Insecta under the 

 same name, as they possess characters in common, apart 

 from their articulated bodies; both Insecta and Crus- 

 tacea being oviparous, and the circulatory and respi- 

 ratory systems nearly the same in the Insecta, Arach- 



