CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 743 



spider is an insect as a mistake due to simple ignorance. Thus, to quote a recent 

 standard work, J. H. and A. B. Comstock in their ' Manual for the Study of 

 Insects' (1909, p. 12), remark that spiders 'are often mistaken for insects,' 

 although the authors have abandoned ' Insecta ' as the name of the class in 

 favour of Hexapoda. The word insect is much older than modern systematic 

 zoology and the class Insecta. The word insect is derived from the Latin 

 insectum, which is based on the verb insecure, ' to cut into ' ; and it was used 

 for animals whose bodies are notched or incised into sections. This meaning 

 of the word is well expressed in the definition by Philemon Holland, who is 

 the earliest English author quoted in the ' New English Dictionary ' as having 

 used the word insect. In his book, ' The Historie of the World, commonly called 

 the Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus ' (1601), he says, ' Well may they 

 all be called Insecta, by reason of those cuts and divisions, which some have 

 about the necke, and others in the breast and belly ; the which do go round and 

 part the members of the bodie, hanging together only by a little pipe and 

 fistulous conveiance.' 



The class Insecta was based by its founder, Linnrcus, on the segmentation 

 of the body, and not on the number of legs ; it therefore included scorpions, 

 millepedes, and spiders. It was not until half a century later that Lamarck 

 excluded spiders from the class Insecta; and as late as 186.T we find so dis- 

 tinguished a naturalist as Bates l remarking that the spiders ' Mygales are quite 

 common insects.' Even such a recent standard modern cyclopaedia as the ' Jewish 

 Encyclopaedia ' - retains the millepedes as insects. The term insect should not, 

 however, be applied to a coral polyp; 'coral insect' is justly denounced as a 

 misleading blunder, due t<5 ignorance of the nature of the coral animal. The 

 terms insectum, and insect according to their original usage - no doubt included 

 worms, and Holland expressly mentioned earth-worms as insects. In many 

 worms, however, the body is not divided into segments, and worms were there- 

 fore early and appropriately excluded from insects ; so Milton writes ' in his 

 description of the bower in Eden : — 



' Other creature here, 

 Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none.' 



Johnson's Dictionary (first edition. 1755) accepted a definition restricting 

 insects to animals whose body is nearly divided in the middle into two parts. 

 ' Insects may be considered together as one great tribe of animals ; they are 

 called insects from a separation in the middle of their bodies whereby they are 

 cut into two parts, which are joined together by a small ligature, as we see in 

 wasps and common flies.' This definition, while admitting spiders, excluded 

 worms. The present zoological separation of insects from other air-breathing 

 arthropods is based mainly on the presence of six legs. The term Hexapoda is 

 therefore more suitable for the class as now defined than Insecta ; and the 

 restriction of Insecta in systematic zoology to a group based not on the insection 

 of the body but on the number of legs, is less accurate and appropriate than its 

 previous use in zoology and in popular English. It would seem better to admit 

 that the spider is an insect, but insist that it is not a hexapod. 



The term worm, on the other hand, illustrates cases in which a restriction 

 of popular meaning is both appropriate and convenient. A worm was originally 

 not necessarily one of the Vermes of the zoologist. Thus the worms mentioned 

 in the Old Testament included various insect larva'. Dr. Eidewood tells me 

 that the manna collected by the Israelites in the desert was probably a small 

 lichen, and that the worms bred in it 4 were probably fly-grubs ; and the refer- 

 ences by Job and Isaiah to worms that cover the dead may include both insect- 

 grubs and nematodes. When Job reminds the sinner of the worm that ' shall 

 feed sweetly upon him' s he had in mind the larvae of blow-flies; and though the 

 worms that ate Herod 6 may have been endoparasitic worms or flukes, the worm 

 that caused the withering of Jonah's gourd 7 was probably a beetle-larva. 



1 A Naturalist on the Amazon, vol. i., p. 161. 

 - 1906, vol. vi., p. 105. :) Paradise Lost, iv. 



4 Exodus, xv.. 20. Job, xxiv.. 20. 



B Acts, xii., 23. " Jonah, iv., 7. 



3 c 2 



