68 



NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



perfect of the vertebrate animals. This fact being 

 demonstrated, it follows that all the larvic of annulose 

 animals must bear as true analogies to those of the 

 diurnal Lepidoptera , as these latter do to the primary- 

 divisions of quadrupeds and of birds. 



{63.) If, again, we look for analogies between the 

 classes of the Annulosa and the typical forms of larvee 

 already explained, we shall not be altogether disappointed. 

 It becomes, indeed, of the first importance to illustrate 

 this subject, because, having abandoned all the arrange- 

 ments and theories of our predecessors, the entomo- 

 logical world in general will expect that good and 

 sufficient reasons should be urged for this venturous 

 proceeding. We begin, then, with the iuliform type of 

 caterpillars, which, as we have already seen, are the 

 pre-eminent ; and they accordingly produce the most 

 perfectly organised of all the diurnal butterflies : it is 

 consequently this type which represents and stands at 

 the head of tlie class Ptilota. Next come the Aptera, 

 and the raptorial larvee. In the former we find all the 

 different races of those noxious or disgusting insects 

 which excite so much terror in viilgar minds, and whose 

 very appearance is repulsive. Among these it is only 

 necessary to mention the different races of spiders, 

 wood lice, scorpions, centipedes, harvest bugs, bird lice, 

 and those detestable parasites the Acari, which are the 

 pest of man in tropical countries. Surely, if any assem- 

 blage of insects may be called types of evil, those in the 

 list now before us are universally felt and known as 

 such. They compose, consequently, the sub-typical 

 group, whose hideous aspect and hurtful qualities are 

 aptly represented by the forbidding appearance and the 

 stinging qualities of the raptorial or scolopendriform type 

 of caterpillars. These latter, among the diurnal Lepi- 

 doptera, produce the Nymphalldie, the sub-typical group 

 of the butterflies; and are again represented by the threat- 

 ening rampant caterpillars of the sphinxes, which are also 

 the sub-typical group of the lepidopterous order. Be- 



