OPINIONS ON MR. NEWMAN's SPHINX VESPIFORMIS. 227 



follows, that both of them have made a very near approach to 

 truth. 



My friend Stephens appears to have followed Clairville's 

 binary division of insects, more for the sake of convenience in 

 publishing than from any conviction of its worth. It is 

 scarcely possible that a comprehensive mind like his should 

 attach any value to a theory so fantastical ; but, having adopted 

 it, consistency compels him to adhere to it, and forces him 

 into the most obvious errors. I presume it to be known to 

 all your readers, at least all who will trouble themselves with 

 the perusal of these remarks, that Mr. Stephens divides 

 insects into two groups : I. Mandihulata, comprising seven 

 orders, 1 . Coleoptera, 2. Dennaptera, 3. Orthoptera, 4. Neu- 

 coptera, 5. Trichoptera, 6. Hymenoptera, and 7. Strepsip- 

 tera; and II. Hanstellata, including likewise seven orders, 

 1. Lejndoptera, 2. Dipteru, 3. Homaloptera, 4. Aphaniptera, 

 5. Aptera, 6. Hetntptera, and 7. Homoptera; that each seven 

 orders form the circumference of a circle, and that the two 

 circles touch or approach at the orders Trichoptera and 

 Lepidoptera, The errors are in the combination of the seven 

 Haustellate orders. The intervention of Aphaniptera (an 

 order of which the flea^ is the only example), between the 

 pupiparous Homalopiera and the ametabolous Anoplura 

 (Aptera), is extravagant and capricious in the extreme, and 

 will not bear a moment's investigation ; the flea is closely 

 allied to the Dipterous genus, Micetophila, both in the final 

 structure and metamorphosis, but is very far removed from 

 either of the groups between which it stands ; the Anoplura, 

 (for I must thus call them, although I see the term Ajjtera 

 misapplied to them), have no right whatever among true 

 insects, whose main distinguishing and unvarying character 

 it is to have a distinct triple metamorphosis, whilst in these 

 the change has dwindled to a mere ecdysis. The same fault 



e We have just received M. Audouin's Annales des Sciences Naturelles, for 

 October, 1832, in which M. Duges, in a paper on the structure and affinities of 

 the flea, has, we think, incontrovertibly proved its natural situation to be between 

 the orders Diptera and Hymenoptera, thus also shewing that those two orders 

 are very nearly allied. The position assigned by M. Duges to the other winged 

 insects tends to prove the accuracy of our valued correspondent's views, and also 

 to demonstrate the very near approach to a natural system made by Messrs. 

 Stephens and Newman. — Ed. 



