328 Mr. Shuckard's Monograph of the Dorylidae. 



Indies the surface is completely covered with this species all alive ; 

 he has promised to let me know the next time the circumstance oc- 

 curs ; I will then look carefully amongst them for the males. It 

 strikes me that the fact of their occurring in such numbers without 

 being intermixed with any other species* militates against your opi- 

 nion of their being the females of Labidus if Labidus is a parasitic 

 insect ; not knowing Labidus by sight I cannot give an opinion as 

 to the probability of their being the sexes of one genus." 



I perfectly agree with Mr. Thwaites, that the remarkable appari- 

 tion of these multitudes, which seems a not unfrequent circumstance, 

 appears to affect my supposition of their being parasites, but it does 

 not contradict the possibility of their being the females of Labidus, 

 nor of their belonging to this family ; and it rather confirms a stronger 

 affinity with the Solitary Heterogyna from three of one species oc- 

 curring of such different sizes ; for this would certainly be an ob- 

 jection to the possibility of their belonging to the Social Hetero- 

 gyna, where never more than two differences of size occur in the 

 same sex. 



But I have given the whole of the hypothesis, which does not at 

 aU affect the descriptive portion of the paper, for no more than it is 

 worth. I build no system upon it ; I have merely suggested it as it 

 occurred to me in the careful examination of these insects ; nor shall 

 I, as is too often the case, identify myself with it and make any dif- 

 ference of opinion a personal matter. The object I have pursued in 

 studying natural history has been to ascertain facts, or in their abs- 

 ence the closest probable approximation to them ; for I am sure, to 

 use the words of our great bard, 



' Nature is made better by no mean, 

 But nature makes that mean.' 



And she is too protean in her disguises to be fitted by any boddice 

 we may choose to invest her with. It is perhaps therefore the truest 

 wisdom to wait patiently, although searching diligently, until she 

 may discover herself, and the reverse will be no paradox when we 

 endeavour to anticipate or force her disclosures. 



* It is not improbable that other species might have been amongst the 

 individuals discovered, as there are clearly two in the four sent to me by 

 Mr. Thwaites. 



