360 ON THE ORDERS 



have since manifested. MM. Lamarck and Dumeril, 

 together with the author of the Entomologie Helvetique, 

 have also been sensible of the necessity of dividing the 

 Winged insects into two classes, distinguished from each 

 other by their manner of feeding. In some countries in- 

 deed entomologists have rejected this distribution, at first 

 because it was not to be found in the Systema Naturce, 

 then because it was not well explained in the Entomologia 

 Systematica, and lastly, because it is in plain terms con- 

 tradicted in the Genera Insectorum and Regne Animal. 

 It is strange that, with this respect for authorities, they 

 should have paid so little deference to the book of nature. 

 They deem it sufficient that in the Regne Animal M. La- 

 treille should have founded his general arrangement on the 

 texture of the wings. He has there indeed expressed him- 

 self as attaching more importance to the aerial organs 

 of locomotion and to the texture of the body, than to the 

 modifications undergone by those other organs upon which 

 the very existence of the individual depends. " Ainsi" 

 says Lamarck, " les caracteres si importans de la bouche 

 tie furent nullement considtrts, et cedhent leur preemi- 

 nence aiix ors.anes si variables de la locomotion dans I'air." 

 The propriety, however, of this system is certainly not 

 perceptible in its results, as exhibited in a series where 

 we have Scutellera next to Tetrix^ Libelhda following 

 Coccus, and Melipona immediately preceding Papilio. 

 Considering that M. Lamarck had already stated the great 

 feult of the system of Linnaeus, as it regarded the Winged 

 insects, to be the confusion of \h&'InssUes Bioyeurs with 

 the Jnsectes Suceurs, such a serfes/i&'iite more extraordi- 

 nary. It would nevertheless^be 'ihe/^eight of injustice 

 not to acknowledge that LatrejUe had good reasons for 



