SYSTEM OF ARISTOTLE. 13% 
may be discerned in the general outlines of his ento- 
mological system. Every one of the orders, afterwards 
more correctly defined by Linneus, were known to 
Aristotle, at a time when natural science may be said 
to have scarcely existed, when collections were perhaps 
unknown, and when the only materials which furnished 
the bases of such enlarged conceptions, were in all pro- 
bability a few Grecian insects, from the scanty gleanings 
of a small kingdom. Mr. Kirby has not failed to re- 
mark, that this wonderful man “ had no contemptible 
notion of the majority of the orders of insects as now 
admitted. His Coleoptera, Psyche, and Diptera are 
evidently such. His idea of the Hemiptera seems taken 
solely from the Cicada or Tetriv ; but the manner in 
which he expresses himself concerning it, as having 
no mouth, but furnished instead with a linguiform organ, 
resembling the proboscis of the Diptera, proves that he 
regarded it as the type of a distinct group. Since he con- 
siders the saltatorious orthoptera as forming such a group, 
it is probable that he included the cursorious ones with the 
Neuroptera in his Majora section of Tetraptera; and the 
resemblance of many of the Mantide to the Neuroptera 
is so great, that this mistake would not be wonderful.” * 
We question, however, whether these views, entertained 
by Aristotle, will not eventually be found correct ; the 
“* mistakes” lying with those who have followed him. 
The Cicada, for instance, is one of the most common, 
and certainly the most noisy insect of Greece: it is not 
surprising, therefore, that our philosopher should have 
selected it as a sort of type for his Astomata (or Hemip- 
tera L.), to which order, in our opinion, it truly be- 
longs; the modern Homoptera, in the natural series, 
being but one of the primary divisions of the Hemiptera, 
as Linneus long afterwards perceived. His division Te- 
traptera is in one respect objectionable, although we are 
fully persuaded that, in a natural classification, the Neu- 
roptera will be found to blend into the Hymenoptera ; 
while the Orthoptera, considered by the moderns as a dis- 
* Int. ta Ent. vol. iv. p. 424. , 
