1 88 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



group of the Bees, or Skin-winged Flies (Hymenoptera), 

 is closely allied to the four orders of biting Flies. Among 

 them are those Flies which have risen to such an 

 astonishing degree of mental development, of intellectual 

 perfection, and strength of character, by their extensive 

 division of labour, formation of communities and states, and 

 surpass in this not merely most invertebrate animals, but 

 even most animals in general. This may be said especially 

 of all ants and bees, also of wasps, leaf- wasps, wood- wasps, 

 gall- wasps, etc. They are first met with in a fossil state 

 in the oolites, but they do not appear in greater numbers 

 until the tertiary period. Probably these insects developed 

 either out of a branch of the primaeval Flies or the gauze- 

 winged Flies. 



Of the two orders of Pricking Flies (Hemiptera and 

 Diptera), that containing the Half-winged Flies (Hemip- 

 tera), also called Beaked Flies (Rhynchota), is the older of 

 the two. It includes three sub-orders, viz., the leaf-lice 

 (Homoptera), the bugs (Heteroptera), and lice (Pediculina). 

 Fossil remains of the first two classes are found in the 

 oolites ; but an ancient Fly (Eugereon) is found in the 

 Permian system, and seems to indicate the derivation of 

 the Hemiptera from the Neuroptera. Probably the most 

 ancient of the three sub-orders of the Hemiptera are the 

 Homoptera, among which, besides the actual leaf-lice, are 

 the shield-lice, leaf-fleas, and leaf-crickets, or Cicadse. Lice 

 have probably developed out of two different branches of 

 Homoptera, by continued degeneration (especially by the 

 loss of wings) ; bugs, on the other hand, by the perfecting 

 and differentiation of the two pairs of wings. 



