180 



ON ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMS, AND THE 



The NEUROPTERous INSECTS, or those with four reticulate or net-work 

 wings, form the fourth order of the Linnaean class; and they maybe exem- 

 plified by the ephemera and hemerobius, the day-fly and May-fly of the 

 angler, those little busy insects that surround us in countless multitudes when 

 we walk on the banks of a river in a fine summer's evening, and the whole 

 duration of whose life, in a perfect state, seldom exceeds two days, and often 

 not more than as many hours ; while it has comparatively a long life m its 

 imperfect state, or previous to its metamorphosis. It is the agnatha of seve- 

 ral entomologists. This order is not numerous, and I will therefore only add 

 another example, the libellula or large dragon-fly, so denominated from its 

 ferocity towards smaller insects ; usually seen over stagnant waters ; the 

 more common species, libellula Virgo, possessing a beautiful, glittering, and 

 green-blue body, with wings bluish towards the middle. The larve in its 

 internal parts, is larger than the insect, and catches its prey at a distance, by 

 suddenly darting forward the lower lip. The trachese, or respiratory organs, 

 are singularly placed at the verge of the tail. It is the odonata of Cuvier. 



The FIFTH ORDER OF iNSKCTs couipriscs the HYMENOPTERA, tlio piczata of 

 some entomologists, or those possessed of four membranaceous wings, most 

 of M^hich are armed with a sting at the tail. They of course include the apis 

 and vespa, or wasp and bee. To which I may add the formica or ant, the 

 ichneumon, and the cynips or gall-fly, to which we are indebted for our gall- 

 nuts, whose peculiarities and habits I shall hereafter have an opportunity of 

 reverting to. 



The SIXTH ORDER OF INSECTS is denominated diptera, and deviates from all 

 the preceding in possessing only two wings instead of four. It includes 

 among others the musca or common fly, the hippobosca or horse-fly,, the 

 oestris or gad-fly, the tipula or father-long-legs, and the culex or gnat. It is 

 subdistinguished into such animals as possess a sucker with a proboscis, 

 and such as possess a sucker without a proboscis. This order is the antliata 

 of some entomologists. 



The LAST order of insects differs still more largely from all that have 

 been hitherto noticed ; for it consists of those kinds that have no wings what- 

 ever, and hence ihe class is called aptera or wingless. To this order belong 

 most of those insects that are fond of burrowing in animal filth upon the ani- 

 mal surface ; as the pulex, pediculus, and acarus, the flea, louse, and itch-in- 

 sect. To the same order belongs also the aranea or spider; the oniscus, 

 wood-louse or millepede ; the scorpio or scorpion, and even the cancer or 

 crab, and lobster ; the Linnaean system making no distinction between land 

 and water animals from the difficulty of drawing a line ; of which, indeed, the 

 cancer genus is a very striking example, since one of the species, cancer 

 curicola or land-crab, is, as we have already seen, an inhabitant of woods and 

 mountains, and merely migrates to the nearest coast once a year for the pur- 

 pose of depositing its spawn in the waters. These, however, are separated 

 from the class of insects in M. Cuvier's classification, and form a distinct class 

 by themselves under the name of Crustacea ; while the greater part of the 

 rest, as spiders, water-spiders, spring-tails, millepedes, centipedes, and scor- 

 pions, are also carried to a distinct order of the insect class, which he has 

 called gnathaptera, leaving to his own order of aptera nothing more than 

 the first three of the preceding list, the flea, louse, and tick or itch-insect. 



But of all the animals belonging to this division under the Linnaean classi- 

 fication, I should mention, perhaps, on account of its singular instinctive 

 faculties, the termes or white ant. The kind which inhabits India, Africa, 

 and South America is gregarious, and forms a community, far exceeding in 

 wisdom and policy the bee, the ant, or the beaver. The houses they build 

 have the appearance of pyramids, of ten or twelve feet in height ; and are 

 divided into appropriate apartments, magazines for provisions, arched cham- 

 bers, and galleries of communication. The walls of all these are so firmly 

 cemented that they will bear the weight of four men without giving way ; and 

 on the plains of Senegal, the collective pyramids appear like villages of the 

 natives. Their powers of destruction are equal to those of architecture ; for 



