196 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



assigned to any other order, we find that they have the 

 strongest and the most complicated jaws, or organs of 

 mastication ; thus showing another great departure from 

 the typical structure of the PtUota. They are, in short, 

 of all insects, the most perfect masticators ; and had 

 Nature really divided the insect world into two primary 

 groups (^Mandibulnta and Hauatel/atn), as some have 

 imagined, the Coleoptera would stand at the head of the 

 former. ' Their actions and habits require great mus- 

 cular power, and they are consequently endowed with a 

 degree of strength perfectly surprising for creatures so 

 small. If any of our readers wish to verify this fact, 

 let him confine a chafer, or any other beetle, in his 

 clenched hand for a few minutes, and it is ten to one 

 but that the little prisoner, by main force, will effect 

 his escape between the fingers, or, by striking the spines 

 of his legs against the skin, oblige his tormentor to 

 open his hand. Beetles have no stings; but some bite 

 furiously and effectually with their upper jaws, which 

 are pointed at the tips, and serrated or toothed inside: 

 with these they seize their food; which is then masti- 

 cated by the help of a pair of under jaws {majcillce), 

 and the upper lip {Jabruvi), which protects the other 

 organs. The situation of all these is analogous to those 

 in the mouth of a vertebrate animal ; and they are 

 accompanied by the feelers {palpi), which are either two 

 or four. 



(170.) We have said that coleopterous insects are 

 known by the two elytra, or sheaths, which cover the 

 wings and body, and which meet in a straight suture 

 down the back ; but if every insect in the whole order 

 really exhibited this character. Nature would then have 

 made a sudden halt, and would have passed, by an ab- 

 rupt transition, from a bee to a beetle, or from the Co- 

 leoptera to the Neuroptera. On this, as on every other 

 occasion, the chain of affinity is therefore graduated, 

 and one order of beings is not suffered to stand isolated 

 and unconnected. Hence it is, that, at the confines of 



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