NOTICES OF SERIALS. 
63 
will appear, we think, that Mr. Newman’s view, (supported and preceded by these 
quotations, in all but the overstrained exclusive lengths he would push it to,) is 
neither an original discovery, nor even the revival of a forgotten truth. In regard 
to the question of priority, not being favoured with any reference for radii, and de¬ 
clining to prove a negative, we can only adduce for the present some positive early 
authorities for the terms set aside ; subject to correction, if yet an earlier date can 
be assigned for this particular application of the term Mr. Newman advocates. In 
Aldrovandus de Animalibus insectis, published a.d. 1602, the veins of the wings 
are repeatedly mentioned, where distinguished by colour, in the Lepidoptera; 
thus “ alee venis nigris —“ septem velut vense rubicundse. eas [alas] percurrunt 
and againof wasps, he says, alse * * * subrubris velut venulis percurrentibus prrn- 
ditse.” Moufet, in his Theatrum Insectorum, published in 1634, but derived in a 
great part from the MSS. of Conrad Gesner, older by nearly a century, uses the 
terms veins and nerves almost indifferently. Thus, of certain Lepidoptera the wings 
are said to be “ nigris quibusdam venulis insignes,” and again, u niveis nervulis, 
&C.’’ While Chry sop a per la is described “alisquatuor * * * quarum nervi 
virescunt.” Swammerdam appears in like manner to have used the terms nerves 
or veins indifferently : see the description of Culex in his History of Insects, (we can¬ 
not quote the Dutch original, but the Latin and the French translations are agreed 
in this) ; although the importance he attributes to their nutritive function— u Haec 
vasa per quse, pro epigenesi facienda, similes particulse, una cum liquore nutritio, 
in alas deferuntur”—might seem to imply a preference for the latter term. In 
Ray’s Historia Insectorum the term nervi is of more frequent occurrence, though 
he has repeatedly mentioned vence among the Lepidoptera, to which it had been 
applied by Petiver also. We conclude our citations, from the writers earlier than 
Linnmus, with Frisch, who uses the term veins invariably, after once suggesting 
the alternative of ribs. Linnasus, who never innovated without necessity, or an ade¬ 
quate motive, retained this use of the term veins , or the more general one of vessels , 
also employed by preceding writers, while Degeer has preferred that of ribs. The 
French authors, Reaumur, &c., writing in their own tongue, introduced nervures ; 
which Olivier thus employs interchangeably for the Latin vence. But neither the 
French nervures , nor the Latin nervi , were chosen with any reference to the restric¬ 
ted sense of nerves, in modern anatomy, as organs of sensation. A reference to 
the Dictionary of the Academy will show that the former term is strictly one of 
art, denoting in bookbinding the raised cords of the backs of books, and in archi¬ 
tecture mouldings; while the application of the latter is to be derived from the 
usage of the Greek and Latin, as living tongues, when it was applied more indis¬ 
criminately, yet chiefly to the sinews, and hence to bow strings also. That such 
was the origin of its use, in reference to the wings of insects, may be inferred, ne¬ 
gatively, from the date of that application preceding any record of the physiolo¬ 
gical theory with which Mr. Newman connects it; and positively, from the similar 
use of the term nerves, as well as veins, in the leaves of plants, where the idea of 
sensitive organs surely -was not entertained. (Linnsei Philosophia' Botanica, 
lxxxiii. 66, 67.) Indeed^ the analogy between these vessels and the veins in the 
wings of .insects, as regards their distribution and connection, is often very striking. 
This may be corroborated by the early renderings of the Latin nervus , which Brun- 
nich in Linnean times translated by Sene (Sinew), and Harris not much later by 
Tendon. As Newman, after arguing from analogy for the term bones , has conclu¬ 
ded by waiving that in favour of another name, we need not labour here to prove, 
that if the vessels in question be not “veins” in the most exclusive and restricted 
sense, which no one probably supposes them to be, yet no ambiguity can arise from 
this long established application of the term in insects, which have no system of 
veins in the former sense, while the analogy to the bones of the Yertebrata is sub¬ 
ject to quite as much limitation, and the expression of it is not in like manner 
supported by familiar usage. But with regard to the preference given to the 
favoured radii , we may observe that it stands on bare grounds of novelty, at least 
until some other evidence of former usage shall have been produced ; that there is a 
patent ambiguity in the application proposed, inasmuch as the same term has been 
long since appropriated to a different division of the wings of insects (see Illiger’s 
Terminology § 1700) ; and further, that the term does not express the analogy to 
