424 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



I take great pleasure in ackDowledging tlie many favors received from 

 the Smithsonian Institution, and return thanks therefor, and also to 

 Professor Baird and Dr. Gill for the valuable suggestions made in regard 

 to my work. 



II.— IXTEODUCTOEY EEMAEKS. 



My study of the Ortlioptera has not been sufficiently extended and 

 thorough to enable me to form an arrangement of the various divisions 

 and subdivisions that is wholly satisfactory to myself. Yet it is proper 

 that I should at least indicate that system which I prefer, as it must to 

 a greater or less degree determine the characters selected to distinguish 

 the different groups, and the comparative value I attach to them. 



Therefore, without attempting at this time to discuss fully the reasons 

 therefor, I will state the order in which I believe the larger divisions 

 should be arranged, and the leading principles upon which it is based. 



Holding, as I do, the Cuvierian idea of four distinct types in the animal 

 kingdom, as explained and unfolded by Agassiz, it is unnecessary for 

 me to look further than the Articidata for the primary basis of an 

 arrangement of a single order of insects. Within the limits of this 

 grouj) or "branch" are to be found all grades of development of the 

 type, from its lowest and most obscure to its highest form, from the 

 germ to the perfect animal. But the relations of the divisions of this 

 group — that is, of the Annelides, Crustaceans, and Insects — to each other, 

 must, to a certain extent, determine the arrangement of the divisions 

 of these classes. The principles and reasons that cause us to place the 

 Insects above the Crustaceans in the scale of being must, so far as they 

 can be followed out, determine the position of the various divisions and 

 subdivisions of the Insects in regard to each other. 



While I cannot wholly agree witli Dr. Packard as to the value he 

 attaches to the different divisions of tlie Articidata., yet I prefer his 

 arrangement of the orders* of the Ilexapod Insects to any I have seen. 

 This system, starting with JSeuroptera as the lowest in the scale, ascends 

 in two branches, one through the Diptera and Lcpidoptcra to the Ilijmc- 

 noptera as the highest in the class; the other through the Ortlioptera 

 and Hemiptera to the Coleojytera, but this last branch does not reach 

 as high a point as that attained by the other. He places the Ortlioptera 

 not directly above the Xeuroptera but sub-parallel to it. I believe that 

 this arrangement gives the true position to the Ortlioptera^ for while this 

 order, as a whole, stands higher than the other yet it is not absolutely 

 above it. In other words, if I were an advocate of the Darwinian 

 theory of the development of genera and si)ecies from lower ibrms, I 

 would certainly hold that the Ortlioptera were not developed from the 

 Neuropter a ^hwt Hint hot\i orders arose from the My riajwda, Crustacea, or 

 some form of being lower than that found in the Hexapod Insects. 



Although I am not a disciple of this great naturalist, yet I believe we 

 may make use of the idea of development, which was advanced as earl}- 

 as the time of Lamark, to assist us in lixing the position of the various 

 groups in the scale of being. As the highest form of a given type, (one 

 of the four grand divisions of the animal kingdom,) in its passage Irom 

 the germ to the adult state, assumes for a time the lower leading forms 

 of that type, it follows that the various groups within that type stand 

 exactly in the same relation to each other that they would if the higher 



*I folio vt' most entomologists, applying the name Order to the group ho calls Sub- 

 order, and Sub-class to the division ' be calls Order. See his Guide to the Study of 

 Insects. 



