THE NEUROPTERA, THE AQUATIC TYPE. 335 



CHAP. XI. 



ON THE NF.UROPTEA. 



(297-) On this, the last order of the Ptilota, our 

 survey must be very brief, since our allotted space is 

 drawing rapidly to a close. The general construction 

 of the insects we arrange under this head, has been 

 more than once adverted to, and their ranks among the 

 other tribes of winged insects sufficiently demonstrated. 

 The character of having four reticulated wings, as- 

 signed to the order by the great fathers of Science, and 

 by which all its typical families are distinguished, is 

 that to which we adhere ; and which, in our estima- 

 tion, is its leading distinction. Nothing definite can 

 be drawn from its metamorphosis, which both Latreille 

 and MacLeay are obliged to confess is " varied." With 

 the exception of the Pliryganidce, which can scarcely be 

 termed masticating insects, the whole of our neuropte- 

 rous families are provided with jaws, and many, like the 

 GryllidcE, bite very hard. By our former diagrams, it 

 will have been seen how perfectly this order coincides 

 with all we have said of the aquatic type of Nature, 

 where the head is of unusual size, and the animal itself 

 lives habitually in the water. Popular opinion, in this 

 instance, has fortunately proved correct ; for the dragon 

 flies (^Libelhdidce) are unquestionably the pre-eminent 

 division of the order, and thus preserve their analogy to 

 the fissirostral types in ornithology. Like the swallows 

 and flycatchers, they seize their prey on the wing, and 

 watch for it from a fixed station. In their larva and 

 pupa state, they live entirely in the water ; and even 

 when they become winged, haunt the precincts of that 

 element on all occasions : they have the largest heads of 



