tO DEFINITION OF THE TERM INSECT. 



pansion both ways. In the Hymenoptera and Diptera, 

 the principal giants are to be found in the predaceous or 

 blood-sucking tribes, as Scolia, the Sphecida, PompilidcE, 

 Vespidce, &c, belonging to the former order; and the 

 Asilidce and Tabanidce to the latter. The true and false 

 humble bees [Bombus and Xylocopa) and the fly tribe 

 (Muscidte), though they sometimes attain to considerable 

 size, scarcely afford an exception to this observation. 

 Amongst the Aptera none of the Hexapods strike us by 

 their magnitude, and few of the Octopods, though the 

 legs of some of the Phalangidce inclose a vast area. That 

 in the table would with them describe a circle of six 

 inches diameter, though its body is little more than a 

 quarter of an inch in length. The Myriapods exceed 

 most insects in the vast elongation of their body, which 

 with their motion gives them no slight resemblance to 

 the serpents. In the class Arachnid^ the bird-spiders 

 {My gale) are amongst the principal giants, nor do the 

 Scorpions fall far short of them — both of them when alive 

 often alarming the beholder as much by their size as bv 

 their aspect. 



But as I have before observed, generally speaking, one 

 of the most remarkable characters of the insect world, is 

 the little space they occupy ; for though they touch the 

 vertebrate animals and even quadrupeds by their giants, 

 yet more commonly in this feature they go the contrary 

 way, and by their smallest species reach the confines of 

 those microscopic tribes that are at the bottom of the 

 scale of animal life. I possess an undescribed beetle, 

 allied to Silpka minutissima E. B.% which, though fur- 



a S. minutissima of Marsham is synonymous with Dermestes ato- 

 marius De Geer, Scaphidium atomarium Gyllenh., and Latridius fasci- 

 pularis Herbst, but surely arranging with none of these genera, being 



