iqwn the Strepsiptera. 171 



representations of the larva in an altered form, but totally different 

 from that of the real pupa, which no one except Jurine appears 

 ever to have seen. 



No insects have so much perplexed entomologists w^ith respect to 

 their structural peculiarities as the present. Hence it is not per- 

 haps surprising that we should find an author at one period regard- 

 ing them as belonging to the Hyvienoptera *, at another to the 

 Diptera f, and at a third period as belonging to none of the esta- 

 blished orders, but wandering comet-like amongst the entomological 

 circles J. In the second of these instances Mr. Newman has pub- 

 lished a series of observations upon the structure of the thorax and 

 its appendages, and the oral organs, which, it is probable, if left un- 

 corrected might lead to erroneous impressions as to the true struc- 

 ture and consequent affinities of the Strepsiptera. If indeed Mr. 

 Newman had dissected the specimen of Stylops which he examined, 

 or if he had carefully examined Mr. Curtis's beautiful figures of the 

 dissections of this genus, or even those published from my figures, 

 in Griffith's Animal Kingdom, he would surely have hesitated before 

 he had made the observations alluded to. He would in fact thence 

 have seen that the prothorax is clearly proved to be a very slender 

 and short yet distinct segment, not lost in the mesothorax ; that 

 the mesothorax instead of being a large and conspicuous segment is 

 scarcely larger than the prothorax, indeed Mr. Newman appears en- 

 tirely to have overlooked it ; that the part termed the scutellum of 

 the mesothorax is the postscutellum of the metathorax ; that the 

 pseudelytra are attached to the collar-like mesothorax and not to the 

 anterior part of the same segment which bears the miscalled scutel- 

 lum ; that these pseudelytra instead of representing the patagia or tip- 

 pets are in fact the real analogues of the anterior wings of the Lepi- 

 doptera ; that the large spreading wings of the Stylops, instead of re- 

 presenting the anterior wings, are the analogues of the posterior ; 

 that the supposed metathorax is only the produced lateral lobes of 

 the metasternum; and that the pair of" crumpled opake whitish 

 hind wings" stated to have been observed by Mr. Walker, and to be 

 attached to this supposed metathorax, are either entirely extraneous 

 bodies connected accidentally with the insect, or are torn portions 

 of the real wings. I have not the slightest doubt with respect to 

 this last assertion, having examined several specimens of Stylops, 

 both in a living and dead state, without having been able to discover 

 the least trace of such a pair of organs as those mentioned above. 



* Newman, in Mag. Nat. Hist., No. 23. f See Entomol. Mag., vol. ii, p. 326. 



X See Sjihinx vcspijormis, an Essay, S:c. 



