4'26 ON THE TRIBES 



upper wings of Lepidoptera are articulated at their base, 

 and then communicate with these epaulettes, which are 

 themselves not articulated any more than the elytra of 

 Coleoptera. The last mentioned organs, therefore, I am in- 

 clined to consider as the basal process of a wing, of which 

 the subsequent articulations are obsolete, but of which a 

 vestige may be traced immediately under the base of the 

 elytra. It is certainly curious that the elytra of Coleo- 

 ptera should not have articulations at their base, but that 

 their wings should ; and it is rather singular that it should 

 escape the notice of M. Latreille, that if these epaulettes 

 of Lepidoptera were organs sui generis, all his theory of 

 the thorax must fall to the ground- There would then be 

 one more pair of thoracic appendages in a Butterfly than 

 there are thoracic segments. 



These remarks, however, I offer merely as hints, content- 

 ing myself with the certainty that the organs which Mr. Kir- 

 by calls the elytra of Strepsiptera answer to the elytra of 

 Coleoptera, and requesting those who may doubt it to re- 

 flect whether any other conclusion can be drawn from the 

 following description, which M. Latreille himself gives of 

 these organs in his late Memoire sur quelques Appendices 

 du Thorax de divers Insect es: " Jurine, qui a assist e a la 

 naissance du Xenos des guepes, nous apprend qu'il agite vi- 

 rement ses balanciers des le premier instant de leur appa- 

 rition. Leur tige est selon lui composee de deux parties 

 lien distinctes ; I' line anterieure, ronde, solide, et cornte, 

 V autre post erieure etformee d'-une legere membrane blanche. 

 Ces organes sont des lors creux ou tubulaires ; Vinsecte les 

 meut avec une grande rapidite lors qu'il vole, et souvent 

 mtme lorsque ses ailes sont en repos. On ne pent done 

 guere douter qu'ils tie Vaident a voler. Sans leur secours, 



