CHAPTER XIX. 



Insecta (Insects). 

 Continued. 



This Class of minute animals is so immense, that it would 

 be impossible within our limits to give a hundredth part 

 of what is on record concerning them, even if we omitted 

 all technical details, and confined ourselves to that which 

 is popularly interesting. The study of the whole Class is 

 felt to be far too large for one human life to embrace 

 with any degree of completeness, and hence we hear of 

 men eminent as coleopterists, lepidopterists, hymenopte- 

 rists, &c, from their having devoted themselves to some 

 one or other of the subordinate groups of this vast assem- 

 blage. We shall just give a bird's-eye view of these 

 subdivisions, indicating here and there some of the more 

 prominent points of interest for which each is distinguished. 



Chief among them stands, by universal consent, the order 

 of Beetles, principally because they are the most "perfect" 

 of Insects. By this term " perfect " as applied to struc- 

 ture, which has sometimes stumbled uninitiated students, 

 we do not, however, mean to imply that a House-fly or 

 a Bug is not as perfectly adapted for its mode of life as a 

 Beetle, nor that it is in the least degree less worthy of an 



