SYSTEM OP ARISTOTLE. 137 



may be discerned in the general outlines of his ento- 

 mological system. Every one of the orders, afterwards 

 more correctly defined by Linnaeus, 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, Psychee, and Diptera are 

 evidently such. His idea of the Hemiptera seems taken 

 solely from the Cicada or TetvLv ; 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 thecursorious ones with the 

 Neuroptera in his Alajora section of Tetraptera ; and the 

 resemblance of many of the MantidcB to the Neuroptera 

 is so great, that this mistake would not be wonderful." * 

 We question, however, whether these views, entertained 

 by Aristotle, will not evantuaUy 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 Linnaeus long afterwards perceived. His division Te- 

 traptera is in one respect objectionable, although we are 

 fully persuaded that, in a wa^ura/ classification, the Neu- 

 roptera will be found to blend into the Hymenoptera ; 

 while the Orthoptera, considered by the modems as a dis- 



* Int. to EnL vol. iv. p. 424 . 



