ORDER V.—NET-WINGED INSECTS. 215 
mained unanswered longer than it should have been, and I 
now improve a leisure hour to fulfill this duty. 
‘Just now, at Professor Agassiz’s request, I have been 
revising the Neuroptera, and have become much interested 
therein. Some of the German naturalists (Erichson, etc., 
etc.) have undertaken to break up this order, leaving there- 
in only those genera which undergo a complete transforma- 
tion, and have inactive pup, such as Semblis, Corydalis, 
Chaulisdes, Raplidia, Mantispa, Hemerobius, Myrmeleon, As- 
calaphus, Bittacus, Panorpa, and Phryganea; and they trans- 
fer Psocus, Termes, Ephemera, Libellula, Perla, ete., to Or- 
thoptera, or put them among the Dlatta, Mantes, Spectra, 
and Grylli ! 
“‘ Linnzus evidently regarded Libellula as the type of his 
order Neuroptera, and this genus seems to have nothing in 
common with the Orthoptera save a remote resemblance in 
the structure of the labium and labial palpi, and the im- 
perfect transformation. This transformation, also, is not 
analogous to that of Orthoptera, excepting only in the fact 
that the pupz are active and take food; in other respects 
they are entirely unlike the perfect insects, whereas the 
pupz of the Orthoptera closely resemble the perfect insect, 
with the exception only of wanting fully-developed wings. 
Hence I maintain that the Libelluladze can not with any 
propriety be put among Orthopterous insects. 
** Libellula is closely connected in organization and hab- 
its with other Neuroptera, and hence, if it be retained in 
this latter order, Ephemera, Perla, Termes, etc., must remain 
also. My knowledge of these insects, in their various states, 
is probably equal to that of the Berlin entomologists, and 
therefore I feel authorized to put my own judgment and ex- 
perience on the subject against theirs. Without going very 
deeply into particulars, allow me to contrast the characters 
of Orthoptera and Neuroptera, thus: 
* OrTHOPTERA.—None of them aquatic. All of them 
active, taking food and growing in the pupa state, which 
resembles the winged or adult state, except in wanting fully- 
grown wings. ‘The parts of the mouth well developed; the 
labial palpi never wanting; the head more or less immersed 
at the base in the pro-thorax, and possessing only a limited 
power of motion; antennz always much longer than the 
head, often very long, mostly setaceous or filiform, very 
