OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 9 



1 — Hymenoptera {oiiriv^ a membrane ; -rtpa^ 

 wings), Clear or Membrane-winged Flies. 

 Bees, Wasps, Ants, Saw-flies, etc. Charac- 

 terized by having four membranous wings 

 witii comparatively few veins (Fig. 2), the 

 hind pair smallest. The transformations are 

 complete: i. e., the larva bears no resem- 

 blance to the perfect insect. 

 bembex FAsciATA. Some of.tho insects of this Order are 



highly specialized, and their mouth parts are fitted both for biting 

 and sucking, and in this respect they connect the mandibulate and 

 haustellate insects. The common Honey-bee has this complex struc- 

 ture of the mouth, and if the editors of our agricultural papers would 

 bear the fact in mind, we should have less of the never-ending discus- 

 sion as to whether bees are capable of injuring fruit at first hand. 

 The lower lip {labium^ is modified into a long tongue, sheathed by the 

 lower jaws {maxillcB)^ and they can sip, or, more properly speaking, 

 lap up nectar; while the upper jaws (mancUbulce), though not gener- 

 ally used for purposes of manducation, are fitted for biting and cut- 

 ting. The Hymenoptera are terrestrial, there existing only a very 

 few degraded, swimming forms. 



This Order is very naturally divided into two sections — the Agu- 

 leata and Terehrantia. The aculeate Hymenoptera, or Stingers, com- 

 prise all the families in which the abdomen in the female is armed 

 with a sting connected with a poison reservoir, and may be consid- 

 ered the typical form of the Order, including all the social and fossorial 

 species. The insects of this section must be considered essentially 

 beneficial to man, notwithstanding the occasional sting of a bee or 

 wasp, the boring of a carpenter-bee, or the importunities of the omni- 

 present ant. Not only do they furnish us with honey and wax, but 

 they play so important a part in the destruction of insects injurious 

 to vegetation that they may be looked upon as God-appointed guards 

 over the vegetal kingdom — carrying the pollen from plant to plant, 

 and insuring the fertilization of dioecious species, and the cross-ferti- 

 lization of others ; and being ever ready to clear them of herbivorous 



as hexapods or hexapad insects, and relegate the long-acoeptcd natural Orders to the rank of Sub- 

 orders. This departure from stricter definitions is defended principally on embryological data, which 

 though of great vahie as pointing to the derivation of insects— their homologies and relations to the 

 past— do not always subserve the best interests of classification. It would be absurd, for instance, to 

 class man with the reptiles or fishes, because, embryologically, up to a certain stage he can not be dis- 

 tinguished trom members of those Classes ; and w^ should, for the most pai-t, confine ourselves to mature 

 forms and external charactei-s in classification. Finally, insects proper, (as defined in the italics,) 

 spiders and millipeds have so many characters that are not common to all, that it is very inconvenient 

 to consider them as belonging to one Class. This inconvenience— not to say incorrectness — is apparent 

 in the wi-itings of many of those who adopt the plan ; for their general descriptions of the organs and 

 parts of an Insect, and especially of the three groat divisions into head, thorax and abdomen, apply 

 solely to hexapod articulates, and can not apply to the Arachnida, which have but two, or to the Myria- 

 poda, which have no great divisions of the body. It is no wonder, therefore, that in separating the Arach- 

 nida trora Iiisecta, Lamarck has been so generally followed . Perhaps, as has been suggested by Dr. 

 Packard in the third edition of the excellent work referred to, these three divisions might best be con- 

 sidered Subclasses. 



