28 



distinct, that several authors have supposed it to constitute one 

 of the primary divisions of Insecta. It is, however, merely 

 the Neuropterous type, the very essence of the class ; and many 

 of its species, Anax Imperator for instance, proclaim themselves 

 by their imperial flight, their enormous size, their richly varie- 

 gated colours, their despotic and cruel habits, emperors of the 

 insect world. In this group we find the organs of sight, mandu- 

 cation, and locomotion, carried to a greater degree of perfection 

 than we ever meet with, except in similar centres : like the king of 

 birds, the dragonfly is unrivalled among his kind. From Libel- 

 lula, the centre, we descend at once to Tinodes, or Psyche, on the 

 circumference of the circle. Supposing Psyche to be the 

 approaching genus to Lepidoptera, I think I need not enter 

 very diffusely on the similarities. Passing to the right, we find 

 that Diptera will next touch the central class ; in which, after 

 leaving the Phryganese, we have now arrived among the next 

 group, or sub-class. Ephemerae : and here, as we might expect, 

 the inferior wings become much diminished — at the point of 

 contact obsolete.* The flight, instead of being solitary, is in 

 company, gracefully and gently rising and falling. The parts of 

 manducation are become obsolete ; while, in habit and appear- 

 ance, the insect imitates the Tipulse and Chironomi, so exactly 

 that the naturalist is foiled in his endeavours to distinguish 

 between them, as they joyously dance together by myriads in the 

 rays of the setting sun. 



We now approach mandibulated orders, and we shall see the 

 loss of mandibles in Phryganea and Ephemera, although appa- 

 rently resulting naturally enough from their distance from the 

 type Libellula, has yet another cause — the proximity of classes that 

 have no mandibles : in the city-building Ants, the mandibles are 

 very perfect, and, therefore, w^e may expect them, and we find 

 them in the city-building Termites. The opinion of philosophers, 

 such as the authors of the Introduction to Entomology, is always 

 worth having, although I am doubtful of assertions about insects, 

 when unconfirmed by thorough entomologists ; and I believe as 

 yet no entomologist is sufficiently acquainted with the real 

 history of white ants, to decide positively as to their different 

 * In Cloeon. 



