Mr. G. Newport on a new genus of Parasitic Insects. 123 



fully finished I have ever made, were on the table of the Lin- 

 naean Society when my paper was read, on the 20th of March, 

 and also on the 1st of May ; on which latter occasion they were 

 examined for a few minutes only by Mr. Westwood. Yet he 

 now makes the following assertion : " Having seen Mr. Newport's 

 drawings made seventeen years ago, I do not hesitate to state that 

 his description has been drawn up from this imperfect sketch (!), 

 and that seven out of the nine generic characters given by him 

 in the f Gard. Chronicle/ p. 1 83, are erroneous." Indeed ! Seven 

 characters erroneous ! ! Mr. Westwood' s former statement (Gard. 

 Chronicle, p. 295) was, that six out of nine were wrong. But 

 now he discovers " seven," — size of the head, the antennae, the 

 wings, and the tarsi of the female, antennae and eyes of the male, 

 and size of the insect. Truly, here are seven. First then as re- 

 gards size. I have described my insect as being of the Lillipu- 

 tian dimension of one line. Mr. Westwood says, No, it is exactly 

 three-quarters. Many thanks for this, and the other equally 

 important corrections, if confirmed. I have said the head of the 

 insect is wider than the thorax. Mr. Westwood says it is not. 

 According to him, I have overlooked some joints in the antennae 

 and some peculiarities of the wings. Possible, certainly. But the 

 admission of the possibility is not an assent to the assertion, 

 without proof. In the tarsi, however, he thinks that I have 

 seen too much. 



As to the male insect he asserts that it has no eyes whatever, 

 but that it has more joints in its antennae than I have described. 

 Yet in all this, while affirming the identity of his insect with 

 mine, he keeps out of view the fact that the one he refers to is a 

 native of France, and that which I have described is indigenous 

 to this country ; and that the middle portion of the antenna in 

 my insect is " large and globose," while the corresponding part 

 in his, according to his description, is " very small and suban- 

 nulose." Nevertheless he " does not hesitate " to " reaffirm V 

 the identity of two insects, one of which he has never seen ! But 

 further, he "affirms," and possibly may hereafter "reaffirm," 

 that some of the characters I have given for my insect, " namely 

 the veins of the wings and the five-jointed tarsi, neither belong 

 to the family nor subfamily to which the insect is to be referred, 

 whilst the possession of stemmatous eyes by the male is disproved 

 by every known species of winged insect, whereas it is as essen- 

 tially a character of some of the Ametabolous tribes." Accord- 

 ing to this lucid view, which seems to have been arrived at 

 through one of Mr. Westwood' s " strikingly opposite analogies," 

 if a winged insect has not compound eyes it cannot have eyes at 

 all. Now it was the peculiarity of my insect possessing stem- 

 matous eyes that led to the introduction of a description of it in 



