32 DEFINITION OF THE TERM INSECT. 
tunity of examining living specimens, I dare not speak 
with any confidence on the subject. 
Having thus given you a view of the most important 
diagnostics by which what we have all along called In- 
sects may scientifically be distinguished from other inver- 
tebrate animals, it may not be without use, if, under 
this head, I take a more popular and familiar view of 
the subject, and say something upon those distinctions 
which may attract the attention of the more common 
observer. 
The notion of diminutive size, particularly as com- 
pared with vertebrate animals, seems more frequently 
attached to the idea of an insect than any other; and 
this notion is generally correct, for one insect that is 
bigger than the least of the above animals, thousands 
and thousands are vastly smaller: but there exist some 
that are considerably larger, whether we take length or 
bulk into consideration, and this in almost every order. 
To prove this most effectually, and that you may have a 
synoptical view of the comparative size of the larger 
insects of the different orders and tribes, I now lay be- 
fore you a table of the dimensions of such of the largest 
as I have had an opportunity of measuring, including 
particularly those giants that are natives of the British 
isles. 
