DIVISION III. AKTICULATA. CLASS I. INSECTA. 



533 



Division III. ARTICULATA. 



The term Articulata is derived from the Latin articulus, a joint, and is applied to animals in 

 which the different portions of the body are composed of movable pieces, articulated, that is, 

 jointed, to each other. As we have given in a previous part of this work (Vol. I., pp. 19, 20), a 

 general description of the structure and physiology of this great division of the Animal King- 

 dom, it is not necessary to enter into further details on the subject here. At pages 28 and 29 

 of the same volume will be found the classification of the Articulata which we have adopted, 

 including the following eight classes : Insecta, Myriopoda, Arachnida, Crustacea, Rotifera, An- 

 nelida, Nematelmia, and Platyelmia. 



Class I. INSECTA. 



The Class of Insects — beetles, bees, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, flies, gnats, mosquitoes, fleas, 

 cockroaches, bed-bugs, grasshoppers, lice, &c., (fee. — includes more than a hundred thousand 

 known and recorded species. This innumerable host, in whatever light we view them, always 

 present many points of the highest interest to our observation. Whether we consider the history 

 of their curious transformations, their extraordinary and often beautiful forms and colors, their 

 wonderful instincts, and the close approach to reason exhibited by some of them ; their eftect 

 upon our persons and property, or the extraordinary means by which nature avails herself of the 

 instincts of some species to put a check upon the ravages of others — we always meet with much 

 to command our admiring attention ; sufficient, in fact, to render Entomology, the study of 

 insects, one of the most attractive pages of the book of Nature. It has, moreover, this additional 



