ORTHOPTERA. 
217 
fc> include the Forficulidae. Dr. Burmeister, and 
some other of the modem continental naturalists, are 
decidedly opposed to any other step, regarding the 
distinctive characters as of no higher value than family 
ones. It is certain that if the principles on which 
the insects in question are separated from the Orthop- 
tera, were in every case acted upon, the amount of 
orders would be at least double w r hat it is at present. 
But whatever may be thought of the expediency of 
multiplying the great primary divisions of the class, 
the differences alluded to afford a ready means for 
dividing the order, as it now stands, into several well 
defined and very natural families or subordinate 
groups. Several of these are so strongly marked, 
that according to the ingenious observation of Pro- 
fessor Lichtenstein, the Jewish lawgiver, when he 
delivered his instructions to the Israelites, regarding 
the kind of food they were to use, distinguishes, as 
clean insects, the Fabrician genera, Gryllus, Locusta, 
Truxalis, and Acheta. “ Yet these may ye eat of 
every flying-creeping thing that goeth upon all four, 
which have legs above their feet to leap withal upon 
the earth ; even those of them may ye eat, the locust 
after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and 
the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after 
liis kind.” * Although Moses may have been led to 
do this non sine adflatu divino } still the discrimina- 
tion, as Mr. Kirby remarks, presupposes a knowledge 
of their general characters in the people to whom the 
* Leviticus, ch. xi. 21, 22. 
