200 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



Ptilota, and to those we must refer the reader who is 

 desirous of further details. It would he highly inter- 

 esting, did our limits permit us to dwell upon all the 

 analogies indicated in these tables; hut our present bu- 

 siness is with the order Coleoptera, and to that only 

 must our remarks be confined. It appears, then, that 

 the three most striking peculiarities of these insects are 

 explained by the most simple process of analogical rea- 

 soning. They are covered with natural armour, because 

 Nature intends them to represent the reptile tortoises, 

 and the quadruped ant-eaters and armadillos : they 

 have the strongest jaws of all perfect annulose* animals, 

 because they typify the most gnawing of all perfect qua- 

 drupeds, namely, the Glires ; and they have two real 

 wings only, because they are the most imperfect ex- 

 amples of the Ptilota. If these analogies are true, they 

 may he extended to hundreds of groups : thus, the 

 Vermes are the most tough-skinned class of the Annu- 

 losa, and are the most aberrant of all the annu- 

 lose divisions : just so are Coleoptera among winged 

 insects. 



(175.) The station of the coleopterous order is con- 

 sequently between those of the Hymenoptera and the 

 Neuroptera. This conclusion, verified in the foregoing 

 tables, reconciles many of the contradictory opinions 

 entertained by some of our first entomologists. Mr. 

 MacLeay, for instance, has not failed to remark the 

 close resemblance which many ants bear to the beetles; 

 and yet it is probable that the true passage between the 

 orders is made by means of the small parasitical ich- 

 neumons and gall-flies, forming our tribe Chalcides. 

 Some of these have the thorax prolonged into a plate 

 or spine, which extends the whole length of the body; 

 so that they put on the very form of a Mordetta. 

 Among the many singular insects discovered by us in 

 Brazil, is a species of this group, which is so completely 

 disguised in this way, that most persons would consider 

 it, at first sight, as anew sub-genus of Mordella, having 

 the antennae pectinated. On the other hand, Nature 



