188 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
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 “¢nstde the victim,” when (as it would 
seem) still furnished with the terebra, whose presence or 
absence wust necessarily determine, zpso 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 structural development, 
that such contrasts extend; comprising, inter alia, peculiar 
differences in the venation of the wings, corresponding among 
species allied in other respects, but having no functional 
advantage in the conservation of the race according to the 
modification theory; such characteristic exponents, in this . 
and other orders, symbolizing the members of each kindred 
associalion with remarkable precision, and serving, coin- 
cidently with other indications, to determine their otherwise 
natural alliances. Nor can it be averred that the relative 
expansion of wing or velocity of flight offer any solution 
of these diversities in the alary system ; for the Tenthredinide, 
with their dilated wings and complex venation, are among 
the most sluggish of these races; while the Oxyuri, the 
Chrysidide, and some of the Fossores, less amply endowed 
in these respects, are eminently prone to energy and vivacity. 
Dr. Miiller, however, eventually demolishes his own super- 
structure, of progressive acquirements as a reliable principle 
of continuous advance to “more and more complex life- 
relations, accompanied by a higher and higher mental 
organization,” by finally expressing his “opinion that the 
various proceedings by which the solitary wasps thus protect 
