393 



In another paper, read to the Linnean Society only last year, 

 Sir John Lubbock has returned to the subject of the metamorphosis 

 of insects, and in connection with it has been led to speculate even 

 on that highest of questions relating to insect life " the Origin of 

 Insects." What may we conceive to have been the parent stock of 

 the whole race 1 or which of all known existing forms probably 

 most nearly resembles it ? He thinks he sees the answer to this 

 question in the GoUemhola, a name applied by him to certain 

 families of the Thysanura described in the series of papers first 

 alluded to, in some of the forms of which group he finds the 

 structure of the mouth intennediate between mandibulate and 

 suctorial, to one or other of which two types the mouth of all other 

 insects may be referi'ed. * 



I have dwelt the longer on these papers of Sir John Lubbock, 

 because they afford a notable instance of the way in which Local 

 Natural Histoiy may be brought to bear upon some of the great 

 questions of the day in the science of biology. 



But there are many other inquiries besides those relating to the 

 development and metamorphosis of insects which suggest themselves 

 to a thoughtful observer. The strange habits of certain species arrest 

 our attention and excite our curiosity to know more of insect life 

 in general. On a former occasion I spoke of the remai-kable fact 

 ascertained by Sir J. Lubbock, of a small Hymenopterous insect 

 that swam on the surface of the water by the help of its wings, t 

 We have now on record the still more remarkable case of a winged 

 insect — by some thought to belong to the Phryganeidse, but more 

 probably a truly Lepidopterous insect, and having wing scales like 

 the Lepidoptera, of the genus A centropus — which is not only born iu 

 the water, the larva having gills and feeding on aquatic plants 

 below the surface, but the pupa state is also passed under water, 



* Joum. of Linn. Soc. (Zool.), vol. xi., p. 422. See also a Lecture on 

 " Insect Metaphorphosis" by Prof. Duncan, delivered before the British 

 Association, 1872, in which are many details connected with the Development 

 of Insects, with conjectures as to what were probably the earliest forms of 

 insect life from which all others have been derived. " Nature," vol. vii., 

 pp. 30 and 50. 



t Proceed, of the Bath Nat. Hist. Field Club, vol. ii., p. 156. 



