OETHOPTERA. 21? 



ID include the Forficulidee. Dr. Burmeister, and 

 some other of the modern continental naturalists., are 

 decidedly opposed to any other step, regarding the 

 distinctive characters as of no higher value than family 

 ones. It is certain that if the principles on which 

 the insects in question are separated from the Orthop- 

 tera, were in every case acted upon, the amount of 

 orders would he at least double what it is at present. 

 But whatever may he thought of the expediency of 

 multiplying the great primary divisions of the class, 

 the differences alluded to afford a ready means for 

 dividing the order, as it now stands, into several well 

 denned and very natural families or subordinate 

 groups. Several of these are so strongly marked, 

 that according to the ingenious observation of Pro- 

 fessor Lichtenstein, the Jewish lawgiver, when he 

 delivered his instructions to the Israelites, regarding 

 the kind of food they were to use, distinguishes, as 

 clean insects, the Fahrician genera, Gryllus, Locusta, 

 Truxalis, and Acheta. " Yet these may ye eat of 

 every flying-creeping thing that goeth upon all four, 

 which have legs above their feet to leap withal upon 

 the earth ; even those of them may ye eat, the locust 

 after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and 

 the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after 

 his kind." * Although Moses may have been led to 

 do this non sine adflatu divino, still the discrimina- 

 tion, as Mr. Kirby remarks, presupposes a knowledge 

 of their general characters in the people to whom the 



* Leviticus, ch. xi. 21, 22. 



