| et A 
xlv 
being diffused over a vast extent of insect-life, as compensating 
influences against excessive fecundity, a multitude of these, 
distributed throughout the whole range, serves to maintain due 
equilibrium on either side; which is oracularly interpreted as 
having “led to the formation of many new species:” but this 
eroup consists of several very distinct races, the Ichneumonide, 
especially those consorting with the Aculeate tribes, being con- 
spicuously superior in energy and intellectual development to 
the Chalcidide, next in succession, reputed higher in the scale of 
structural organisation and affinity. 
With respect to the further advance from the ovipositor to 
the sting, the non-existence of the first-mentioned instrument 
necessarily involves external deposition of the egg, with all the 
concomitant requirements of protection for the latter in a closed 
cell, and provision for the future progeny; but Dr. Miiller would 
have us believe that, contrary to all analogy, some of the aforesaid 
“‘insect-piercing” races “‘ carried off their victim to a place of 
concealment,” and were thus led to abandon.the habit of laying 
their eggs “‘ inside the victim,” when (as it would seem) still fur- 
nished with the terebra, whose presence or absence must neces- 
sarily determine, ipso facto, the mode of oviposition with its 
accessories; this organ, however (as we are taught), becoming 
converted into a sting by “slow and gradual” degrees, while, of 
course, in the active and essential exercise of its appropriate 
functions as an ovipositor, or otherwise not a single generation 
of these reforming groups, now become industrious constructors 
and purveyors, could have survived such transitional period ! * 
Moreover, it is not to the sting alone, but to the whole struc- 
tural development, that such contrasts extend ; comprising, inter 
* Dr. Dewitz has lately shown that ‘“ the sting is distinguished in a remarkable 
manner from the ovipositor of the grasshoppers, by the number, as Well as by the 
attachment, of the muscles which move these apparatus. * * * The differences 
arise, above all, from the dimensions, the forms, and the adherences of homologous 
parts; and particularly from the different relations which the sheaths of the sting, 
and the upper sheaths in Locusta, bear to the other parts.”—(‘On the Structure 
and Development of the Sting and Ovipositor of some Hymenoptera and of Locusta 
yiridissima.” By Dr. H. Dewitz—‘ Zeitschy. fiir wiss. Zool., 1875. Transl., ‘Ann. 
and Mag. Nat. Hist., No. xcii., Aug., 1875, p. 154.) 
Saint-Fargeau says of the sting—‘ Il ne sert qua déposer dans la plaie qwil fait 
un acide plus ou moins actif, et n'a aucun rapport avec les parties de la genération ; 
tandis que la tariére de la premiére section (Terebrantes, Latr.) est la prolongation 
extéricure de Voviductus” (Loe. cit., p. 3, note). 
