32 DEFINITION OF THE TERM INSECT. 



tunity of examining living specimens, I dare not speak 

 with any confidence on the subject. 



Having thus given you a view of the most important 

 diagnostics by which what we have all along called In- 

 sects may scientifically be distinguished from other inver- 

 tebrate animals, it may not be without use, if, under 

 this head, I take a more popular and familiar view of 

 die subject, and say something upon those distinctions 

 which may attract the attention of the more common 

 observer. 



The notion of diminutive size, particularly as com- 

 pared with vertebrate animals, seems more frequently 

 attached to the idea of an insect than any other ; and 

 this notion is generally correct, for one insect that is 

 bigger than the least of the above animals, thousands 

 and thousands are vastly smaller : but there exist some 

 that are considerably larger, whether we take length or 

 bulk into consideration, and this in almost every order. 

 To prove this most effectually, and that you may have a 

 synoptical view of the comparative size of the larger 

 insects of the different orders and tribes, I now lay be- 

 fore you a table of the dimensions of such of the largest 

 as I have had an opportunity of measuring, including 

 particularly those giants that are natives of the British 

 isles. 



