622 EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 



base to their apex, and from their anterior to their pos- 

 terior margin. 



3. I should have had, it is probable, but little original 

 matter to communicate under the head of the composition 

 and neuration of wings, had M. Jurine, who has written 

 so ably on those of Hymenoptera, undertaken a survey of 

 the organs of flight in every Order of insects: but as his 

 views were confined to only two of the Linnean Orders, 

 it is not wonderful that his system and set of terms should 

 fail where a generalization is necessary; and I may stand 

 acquitted of presumption and conceit if I attempt to sub- 

 stitute a system and body of terms more universally ap- 

 plicable. Had the plan of this able Entomologist led 

 him to pay attention to tegmina and hemelytra, their 

 division into three longitudinal areas would have imme- 

 diately struck him ; and having acquired this outline of 

 the greater natural divisions, he would have applied it to 

 the Orders that have wings only, and having discovered 

 that it is to be traced in all, the result would have pro- 

 bably superseded my labors. Had his life been longer 

 spared, perhaps something of this kind would have been 

 eifected by him ; but as he, alas ! is gone, and no abler 

 hand seems to have undertaken the task, I will do what 

 I can to give you satisfaction on this subject a . You 



a The idea of dividing the wing of an insect into larger areas seems 

 first to have been acted upon in Monogr. Apum Angl. (1801), in which 

 those of Hymenoptera were stated to consist of three portions, viz. 

 Basis, Medium, Apex (i. 211.); which mode of dividing them was at 

 first adopted by M. Latreille {Gen. Crust, et Ins. iii. 226. Note 1.) 

 The same learned author (Ibid. iv. 239.), with regard to the Diptera, 

 made a near approximation to the plan of dividing wings into longi- 

 tudinal areas, but by the addition of a basal area, which interrupts 

 the attention to the communication of the areas with their axes, he 

 has rendered his system less perfect. Two of his terms— Costal Area 



