8 MODERN CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS, 
little group Megaloptéres into two, keeping Corydalis (Corydalina 
MacLeay) in the order Neuroptera, and giving Megaloptera LZatreille, 
as a distinct and osculant group between that order and the Trichop- 
tera: Boreus being also removed from the Neuroptera, and forming a 
distinct osculant group between it and the Orthoptera. It is scarcely 
possible to conceive a more unnatural mode of treating this order. 
More recently M. Brullé, in his Entomology of the Morea, has en- 
deavoured to construct another distribution of these insects, which he 
divides into four orders, namely : — 
Ist, The Dictyoptera*, comprising Libellula, Ephemera, and Perla. 
2nd, The Isoptera, consisting of the single genus Termes. 
8rd, The Trichoptera, consisting of the single genus Phryganea. 
4th, The Neuroptera, containing the remainder of the Linnean 
genera. The genera Raphidia, Mantispa, and Psocus being removed 
to the order Orthoptera. 
In rejecting these views, both of Brullé and MacLeay, I am influ- 
enced by the evident diversity which exists amongst these insects, 
whereby groups, most nearly related to each other, would be removed 
far apart were we to adopt them; thus ex. gr. Perla is clearly more 
nearly related to some of the genera left by Brullé in his restricted 
order Neuroptera than it is to Ephemera. It is for the same reason 
that Iam not fully convinced of the propriety of keeping Phryganea 
as a distinct order, although I have thought it better to follow the 
steps of Kirby, Stephens, and MacLeay, respecting its separation, 
rather than unite it with the rest of the Neuroptera into one order as 
Latreille and Pictet have done. 
Regarding then the Neuroptera as an order distinct from the Tri- 
choptera, which is to be restricted to Phryganea, we find it related 
of course, on the one hand, to the Trichoptera, whilst, on the other, it 
closely approximates to the Orthoptera. The curious genus Mantispa, 

antenne, mouths, and wings of Perla and Phryganea, all manifest their close affinity, 
(Hore Ent. p. 430.) Now Latreille has nowhere given Phryganea as portion of 
the Perlaria, as Mr. MacLeay clearly thought he had done ; for had he studied the 
tabular distribution given in a preceding page of the “ Genera,” he would have seen 
that Latreille had not the slightest idea of uniting the Perlide and Phryganeide 
into one group; whilst, had he known the larva and metamorphoses of Perla, he 
would have found that they were as unlike those of Phryganea, as are the mouths 
and wings of the two genera. 
* Leach had previously used this name for the genus Blatta; its application, there- 
fore, to other insects was not warranted, 
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