336 NATURAIi ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



any insects in existence; and, like nearly all aquatic 

 tribes, have great swiftness of motion. N^ext to these 

 we place the Gryllidce, or grasshoppers and locusts, 

 whose heads are less developed ; and whose upper wings, 

 as typical of the Hemiptera, are thicker, and more in- 

 clined to become coriaceous than the under : the under 

 wings, also, in both, are semitransparent, and are folded 

 when at rest : they are all herbivorous, and thus again 

 imitate the sub-typical division of the Hemiptera. Fol- 

 lowing these two families, we place the ForficuUdcB, or 

 earwigs, which thus enter in that part of the neuropte- 

 rous circle which touches the Coleoptera. That this is 

 their true station, may be proved by analysis; and is 

 further confirmed by the opinions of several writers un- 

 acquainted with the theory we now maintain. " The 

 Forficulida; ," as MacLeay truly observes, " are, in fact, 

 coleopterous insects, with the metamorphosis and caudal 

 appendages of true Orthoptera ; " to which we may fur- 

 ther add, they ai-e the thysanuriform type of the whole 

 of this circle. The insects forming the supposed order 

 Strepsiptera, we place as the next, and the most aber- 

 rant family : they are representatives of the Coleoptera, 

 and find their prototypes in several families of beetles, 

 as well as in many of the parasitic genera in the hyme- 

 nopterous and hemipterous circles. The affinities of 

 these extraordinary insects, until the discovery of their 

 most aberrant types, must ever remain a subject of 

 doubt or dispute. Our own opinions have resulted 

 from the utter impossibility of locating them elsewhere, 

 the absence of any other distinct group sufficient to 

 fill up this part of the neuropterous circle, and the 

 opinion that some writers hold on their relation to the 

 ForficulidcB. The whole question, as it now stands, is a 

 matter of inductive reasoning, and of the synthetic 

 principles of arrangement, and as such we leave it. On 

 the fifth and last division, there can be no doubt. The 

 Phryganida are partly neuropterous and partly lepl 

 dopterous insects ; thus blending the characters of the 

 two orders, and bringing them i;ito juxtaposition. Our 



