40 DEFINITION OF THE TERM INSECT. 
tent both ways. In the Hymenoptera and Diptera, the 
principal giants are to be found in the predaceous or 
blood-sucking tribes, as Scolia, the Sphecida, Pompilide, 
Vespide, &c., belonging to the former order; and the 
Asilide and Tabanide to the latter. The true and false 
humble-bees (Bombus and Xylocopa) and the fly tribe 
(Muscide), though they sometimes attain to considerable 
size, scarcely afford an exception to this observation. 
Amongst the Aptera none of the Hexapods strike us by 
their magnitude, and few of the Octopods, though the 
legs of some of the Phalangide inclose a vast area. ‘That 
in the table would with them describe a circle of six 
inches diameter, though its body is little more than a 
quarter of an inch in length. The Myriapods exceed 
most insects in the vast elongation of their body, which 
with their motion gives them no slight resemblance to 
the serpents. In the class Arachnida, the bird-spiders 
(Mygale) are amongst the principal giants, nor do the 
Scorpions fall far short of them— both of them when alive 
often alarming the beholder as much by their size as by 
their aspect. 
But as I have before observed, generally speaking, one 
of the most remarkable characters of the insect world, is 
the little space they occupy; for though they touch the 
vertebrate animals and even quadrupeds by their giants, 
yet more commonly in this feature they go the contrary 
way, and by their smallest species reach the confines of 
those microscopic tribes that are at the bottom of the 
scale of animal life. I possess an undescribed beetle, 
allied to Silpha minutissima KE. B.*, which, though fur- 
* S. minutissina of Marsham is synonymous with Dermestes ato- 
marius De Geer, Scaphidium atomarium Gyllenh., and Latridius fasci- 
ewaris Herbst., but surely arranging with none of these genera, being 
