_ 
XXXVI 
form an independent opinion on those abstruse problems of 
descent and inheritance, the solution of which, to be consistent 
with such doctrinal precepts, cannot be held to affect the past 
alone, without involving the future also in the same overruling 
destinies. 
Mr. Douglas has lately told us*‘—on the authority of one of our 
most esteemed Entomologists, the late J. F. Stephens—that 
predilections for particular orders of insects are apt to prevail in 
cycles,—that at one period the taste for one of these orders would 
seem to predominate, and for another. at some other period; and 
he calls attention to the neglect which has befallen some of these 
in this country, and to the fields which lie fallow in consequence. 
This must be deemed the more surprising as regards the 
Hymenoptera—to which he first adverts—which Kirby has 
dignified “‘as the Princes of the insect-world,”’ + and which 
present the greatest amount of intelligence, the most complex 
variety of industrial resources, and the readiest access to observa- 
tion and research. Yet how few of our entomologists, compara- 
tively speaking, have enrolled themselves in the ranks of their 
votaries, and how much recondite lore remains to be explored by 
a careful study of their habits and instincts ! 
The Hemiptera and the Diptera are also comprised by Mr. 
Douglas among the neglected class, where the harvest is plenteous, 
but the labourers are few. 
It is, however, more especially from that wider domain already 
referred to, that we may look for the richest results,—when the 
charms of the matured form alone shall prove less seductive to 
the many,—when the study of economy and metamorphosis shall 
plead greater attractions,—and when other incitements shall cede 
the palm to those which embrace the intelligent principle and 
functional discipline. 
Sir John Lubbock has recorded in the ‘ Journal of the Linnean 
Society’ (May, 1875, No. 69) various interesting experiments in 
continuation of his “ Observations on Bees, Wasps, and Ants ;”’ 
tending to show that bees “do not communicate with their sisters 
even if they find an untenanted comb full of honey,’—that, far 
from exhibiting “any evidence of affection, they appear to be 
*«The Cycles of Entomology,’ by J. W. Douglas (Ent. Mo. Mag., Sept. 1875, 
p. 89). 
+ ‘Introduction to Entomology,’ iv. p. 890 (5th edit.) 
