Insects. 2685 



shall I contend that we are warranted in any arbitrary nomenclature 

 of its parts, much less in any conclusions deduced from such arbitrary 

 nomenclature. Concerning the labrum, it seems to be pretty clearly 

 ascertained that it is absent, or so anchylosed to and mixed up with 

 the clypeus as to elude our search. I am not aware that this absence 

 or concealment of a part can be availed of in the present inquiry. 

 The lancet-shaped organs, therefore, claim our chief attention. Sa- 

 vigny, the facile princeps of gnathology, considers them to be man- 

 dibles, while he makes the basal joint of the palpus a maxilla and the 

 apical joint a maxipalpus : it is impossible not to attach great impor- 

 tance and value to the opinion of so eminent a man. Mr. Curtis, to 

 whom we are indebted for several admirable figures and dissections, 

 and who has thrown great light on the structure of these highly inte- 

 resting but obscure insects, unhesitatingly describes the lancets as 

 maxillae and the palpi as maxipalpi ; and this view seems to be almost 

 universally adopted : taken numerically, the suffrages of entomologists 

 would be in favour of what may be called the maxillary theory ; but 

 I cannot deny that the authority of Savigny in favour of the mandi- 

 bular theory is of more weight than that of all the rest, for it is to him 

 we are indebted for all our knowledge of cibarian homologies. It is 

 therefore with extreme reluctance, and after long and careful delibera- 

 tion, that I am induced to express an opinion opposed to Savigny's, 

 and to state my belief that the lancets are true maxilla?, or, speaking 

 with greater precision, the laciniaB of maxillae ; and I may perhaps be 

 allowed to observe that Savigny's decision in this matter seems 

 founded rather on an isolated consideration of a question hastily pro- 

 pounded to him, than on that comprehensive synthetical review which 

 he had previously taken of insect gnathology. 



I will now state my reason for supposing the lancets as well as the 

 palpi to be maxillary organs : in the first place, they are united to- 

 gether like the maxillae and appendages in ordinary Coleoptera or 

 Orthoptera ; there is a connexion and continuity between them which 

 does not obtain between the mandibles and maxipalpi in any other 

 insect, as far as my knowledge extends. In veiy many genera I find 

 the maxillae somewhat mixed up with, or by attachment identified as 

 a part of, what might be termed the labial apparatus ; but I know of 

 no instance in which the mandibles are so mixed and identified. In 

 the second place, the lancets are seated on something like a tubercle 

 which seems analogous to the stipes of the maxilla, the lancet itself 

 being the lacinia: as far as I am aware, this division into two parts, 

 having a certain although slight quasi-articulation, has never been 

 viii H 



