DEFINITION OF THE TERM INSECT. 7 



treille a , there seems some ground for thinking, that in 

 these the antennae are represented by the mandibles, 

 palpi, &c. b , and to the soft flexible, coriaceous or mem- 

 branous skin of a vast number of insects, the term cutis 

 ossea is by no means applicable. 



Evident as these incongruities are, when the Herculean 

 task which Linne imposed upon himself, and the vastness 

 and variety of his labours, are considered, they become 

 very venial. Indeed, unless he had divided his class In- 

 secta into two or more, it was impossible to define it in- 

 telligibly to ordinary readers, otherwise than nearly in 

 the terms which he actually employed ; and these cha- 

 racters, restricted and amended by qualifying clauses, are 

 still those to which recurrence must be had in a popular 

 definition of the class, when separated as it ought to be 

 from the Crustacea and Arachnida. 



Pennant, Brisson, and other zoologists, who, attending 

 to nature rather than system, saw the impropriety of unit- 

 ing a crab or a lobster in the same class with a bee or a 

 beetle, long since assigned the Crustacea their ancient 

 distinct rank. " But these changes," as Latreille ob- 

 serves , " being only founded upon external characters, 

 might be deemed arbitrary ; and to fix our opinion, it 

 was necessary to have recourse to a decisive authority — 

 the internal and comparative organization of these ani- 



a Quoted by Mr, Wm. MacLeay in his very remarkable and 

 learned work Horcc Entomological, in which he inclines to the same 

 opinion. 383. 



b Treviranus ( Ueber den innem Ban der Aracknidcn, &c. 22.) al- 

 ways calls the palpi of spiders " Fiilhorner." In Scorpio he regards 

 them as palpi (Palpen). 



c N. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. xvi. 18!. 



