494 THE INSECT WORLD. 
operation, they are moved about, either with a stick or with the 
hand, which is more convenient; but it is then necessary to take 
the precaution of putting on gloves, for, if touched with the naked 
hand, they would cause more or less serious blisters. The same 
precaution must be observed in gathering them. 
When the Cantharides are quite dry, they put them into wooden 
boxes, or vessels of glass or earthenware, hermetically sealed, 
and preserve them in a place protected from damp. With 
these precautions, they may be kept for a long while without 
losing any of their caustic properties. Dumeril made blisters of 
Cantharides which had been twenty-four years in store, and 
which had lost none of their energy. When dry, they are so 
light that a kilogramme contains nearly thirteen thousand insects. 
Aretius, a physician who flourished at Rome in the first century 
of our era, seems to have been the first to employ Cantharides, 
reduced to powder, as a means of vesication. Hippocrates ad- 
ministered them internally in cases of dropsy, apoplexy, and 
jaundice. But it is pretty nearly established that the Cantharides 
of the ancients were not the same species used at the present day. 
They were, probably, a kindred species, the Mylabris chicorti. A 
blistering principle has been extracted from these insects, called 
Cantharadine. 'This organic product presents itself under the form 
of little shining flakes, without colour, soluble in ether or oil. 
One atom of this matter applied to the skin, and particularly to 
the lower lip, makes the epidermis rise instantaneously, and pro- 
duces a small blister filled with a watery liquid. In spite of the 
corrosive principle which the Cantharis contains, it is attacked, 
like other dried insects, by the Dermestes and the Anthrenus, 
which feast on them without suffering the smallest inconvenience. 
The Stylopide, for which Kirby,* in 1811, instituted a distinct 
Order, which he called Strepsiptera, in allusion to the contortion 
of the elytra, and to which Latreillet subsequently applied the 
name of hipiptera, are, perhaps, the most anomalous of all insects. 
Great diversity of opinion has existed respecting their affinities ; 
but modern systematists, with but few exceptions, concur in refer- 
ring them to the Order Coleoptera, and locating them in proximity 
* On a new Order of Insects, ‘ Linn. Trans.,”’ vol. xi. 
t+ In Cuvier, “‘ Le Regne Animal,” ed. i. tome iii. p. 584. 
