Packard.] 
INSECTS AS MIMICS. 
283 
still. Here again we see the isolation of the Coleoptera 
from the other suborders with which it is connected. The 
suborders below it, by an exact parallel with the case above 
mentioned, reach up and connect themselves by these re¬ 
markable analogies with the Coleoptera, which do not in 
turn assume any of their forms. Some Ortlioptera are very 
coleopterous-like, and some Ilemiptera are very coleopter¬ 
ous-like. The reverse cannot be said. So the Diptera and 
Lepidoptera, as they advance in their family forms, are con¬ 
stantly throwing out hints and suggestions of forms that 
seem very strange to them, but become generalized in the 
group that tops them. Thus in the broad, irregular, net- 
veined, neuropterous fore wing, which becomes smaller and 
thicker in the orthopterous Blatta, and still more coleopter¬ 
ous in the hemipterous Corixa, we arrive at the perfected 
elytron, with its regular, obsolete veins and new protective 
function. 
“Most of the examples above mentioned are familiar to 
entomologists, and others will occur no doubt to illustrate 
the subject more fully. 
“Many authors have agreed that the suborders of insects 
can be arranged into two series or groups, often called Man- 
dibulata and Haustellata, though disagreeing as to the rela¬ 
tive rank of these two divisions, and the true places the 
suborders should occupy within them. It is enough for my 
purpose to assume that there are two such series, though 
believing that the two culminate in the Ilymenoptera and 
Coleoptera respectively, in the succession that I have indi¬ 
cated above. 
“What have we now in common with both, and which 
shall reunite this seeming polarity in the two series of sub¬ 
orders ? There is needed a group which, while retaining its 
own strong fundamental features, and maintaining an equal 
footing with its equivalent groups, shall have besides the 
strongest analogies to those groups farthest removed by 
27 
