Diptera

S Myrmex .. Pygolampis

Pteerota simul et Aptera Aptera It may be further stated,' says this author, that Aristotle perceived also the distinction between the mandibulata and haustellata of modern authors; for he observes, that some insects having teeth are omnivorous; while others, that have only a tongue, are supported by liquid food. He appears to have regarded the hymenoptera, or some of them, as forming a third, subclass; since he clearly alludes to them, when he says that many have teeth, not for feeding, but to help them in fulfilling their instincts. How far Aristotle's ideas with regard to genera and species had attained to any degree of precision, is not easily ascertained; in other respects his knowledge of insects was more evident. As to their anatomy, he observes that their body is usually divided into three primary segments,— head, trunk, and abdomen; that they have an intestinal canal,-in some straight and simple, in others contorted,-extending from the mouth to the anus; that the orthoptera have a ventricle or gizzard. He had noticed the drums of the cicada, and that the males only are vocal. Other instances of the accurate observation of this great man might be adduced, but enough has been said to justify the above encomiums. His principal error was that of equivocal generation.'

A cursory perusal of Aristotle's labor on this subject, say our most eminent modern entomologists, always astonishes us; not only from their general consistency, but from their accordance with the entomological definitions of the best modern systematists: and while the opportunities of this great philosopher under the patronage of Alexander, and his own transcending qualification for the cultivation of science will account for much of what we find in his writings, when we reflect on the slow manner in which all human knowledge is attained and developed, we must be convinced that the science of nature must have made some considerable advancements before his time; and that he has derived many advantages from consulting the works of more ancient naturalists, whose labors have been lost.

Other ancient writers on insects, quoted by Athenæus, are Speusippus and Leonides, pupils of Plato and Aristotle. Xerocrates, who lived in the 110th Olympiad, treated also of insects, in

his six books on Nature: Theophrastus, too, a disciple of Plato and Aristotle, notices insects in his writings; and Antigonus, who flourished under Ptolemy II. in a work published at Leipzic in 1791, alludes to the habits of insects.

#lian, in his ΠΕΡΙ ΖΩΩΝ ΙΔΙΟΤΗΤΟΣ, without entering in a methodical manner into the history of any tribe, appropriates several chapters to particular kinds of these animals, which are described with considerable accuracy; as, the scorpion for instance, okopriv; ants, μvpμήκων; spiders, άραχνω; crickets, τεττίγων; the generation of wasps, repi rns OONKŵv yevśoews ; of cantharides, Tv Kaλnewv kav@apidwv, &c. The poet Phile also called, from his superior knowledge of natural history, 'Phile Sapientissimi,' pleasingly describes the manners of the cicada, and the bees, TETTIywv and μeλπwv. He entertains the idea of Elian, that the cicada, by which he means the cricket (not the insect named cicada by Linnæus), lived on dew; and that the female was mute, while the male 'enchanted the grove with the harmony of song." He speaks also of the lampyris, and other insects. The beatiful ode of Anacreon to the cicada is well known.

Other Greek writers who followed Aristotle within a few centuries, in treating upon insects, were Democritus, Neoptolemus, Aristomachus, Philistus, Nicander, Dionysius, Mago, Empedocles, Callimachus, Apollodorus, Eriphilus, Erasistratus, Asclepius, Themiso, Posidonius the stoic, Meander of Priene, Euphronius of Athens, and Meander of Heraclea, and Hesodius, who bring us down to the time of Pliny. Aristomachus, of Soli, is said to have written on Bees from the result of sixty years' attention to their economy.

Contemporary Latin writers of this era were, Pub. N. Figulus, M. T. Varro, Hyginus, Sarcana, Celsus Cornelius, Æmilius Macer, Virgil, Naso, Columella, Julius Aquila, Tarquilius, Umbritius, Cato Censorius, Domitius, Calvinus, Melissus, Favonius, Fabianus, Mutianus, Nigidius, and Manilius. No one of these contributors to this science, is, however, of moment. Pliny him: self is but a compiler on the basis of Aristotle's

ystem.

From the time o liau until the downfal of

the Roman empire, although the study of insects seems not to have been totally abandoned, we are ignorant of any progress being made in it. Between this period and the middle ages, the names of Titus, Etius, Alexander, Oribasius, Trallian, Paulus Ægineta, Lucius Apuleius, Athenæus, Oppianus, Marcus Aurelius Olympius, St. Ambrosius, Epiphanius Cyprius, Decius Magnus Ausonius, Æmilius Marcus, Merboldus, and Cassiodorus Isiodorus, occur as writers upon insects, but their works are rather memorials of the interest and ignorant wonder ever excited by these tribes, than correct descriptions of any portion of them.

From the ninth to the twelfth century the Arabian botanists, Rhazes, Avicenna, Avenzoar, and Averrhoes, were occasional writers on entomology, and at about the latter period Hildegardis de Pingua wrote four books, entitled Physica St. Hildegardis, published in 1533 and 1544 in folio. Shortly after this period appeared the obscure writers, Myrepsus, Platerus, and Lianus. Parts of the zoological work of Albertus Magnus, ' De Animalibus,' &c., who died in 1280, relate to insects. His work was first printed at Venice in the year 1519. In the thirteenth century, also, appeared a celebrated French naturalist, Bellonacensis, who wrote on insects. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Gregorius wrote his excellent German work, on birds and fishes and insects, of which there is a Latin edition. In 1549 appeared a work of Agricola, entitled De Animantibus subterraneis, in which is a new systematic arrangement of insects. He classes them in three principal divisions, i. e. those which walk, those which fly, and those which swim; describing under each class several species. In the middle of the same century, 1552, Edward Wotton, M. D. of London, published De Differentiis Animalium; a work including some intelligent observations on insects. A small French work of 1555, under the title of Libri de Piscibus Marinis, by Rondeletius of Montpelier, treats mainly, as the title intimates, on fishes, and other aquatic animals; but it also includes insects, and accompanies some of the descriptions of them with rude figures cut in wood. Lesser states that there was in his time, in the library of the Jesuits at Ratisbon, a copy of this work in two volumes; on the margins of the leaves of which are large notes in the hand-writing of Gesner. Toward the close of this century appeared Gesner's contributions to this science, entitled Serpentium et Insectorum Libellus; Xenocrates de Natura, Libri sex: curâ Gesneri, &c. He was esteemed the most diligent enquirer into nature that his age produced; but, on the whole, he has slightly treated the subject of insects.

tates Academicæ, Forskal considers him as an indefatigable compiler, celebrated for the number of his works, but who thought he had acquitted himself in collecting together the undigested observations of the ancients. We cannot avoid expressing other sentiments; and, notwithstanding that he has fallen into many errors of his predecessors, this work entitles his memory to respect. In this pursuit he expended large sums of money (see our article ALDROVANDUS), travelling for information, and in the employment of artists, as he was, unfortunately, himself deficient in the talent of drawing. During the space of thirty years, he is said to have paid 200 florins annually to a painter, solely occupied in the delineation of insects. From the fatigue of these and similar researches, this indefatigable man was deprived of sight in his old age. He divided insects into two primary orders, the terrestrial and the aquatic; the first called favica, the other nonfavica. These he again subdivided ir to many orders; the characters of which are determined. by the number, nature, and position both of the wings and feet. If the representations of the insect tribes, from the general minuteness of their characters, are more rudely expressed in the work of Aldrovandus, than the figures of the larger animals, which his volumes contain, this defect is less imputable to the liberality of Aldrovandus than the cupidity of the artist, and the existing state of the art. The best book of this period, in our own country, is Mouffet's Insectorum Theatrum, seve minorum Animalium Theatrum, 1634; and it has only cuts on wood. For the space of nearly a century after this, copper-plates were rarely introduced. This work is professedly an improvement on that of Dr. Wotton, begun in 1550, continued by Gesner, and afterwards published in its present form by Mouffet.

The next work to that of Aldrovandus, in historical order, is the Historia Animalium Sacra, of Wolfang Frenzius, published in 1612, containing much original observation. After Agricola, he distributes insects into three classes, which he names aërea, aquatica, terrea, et reptantia; and exceeds in accuracy most of his predecessors. The work of Fabius Columna, Aquatilium et Terrestrium aliquot Animalium Observationes, printed at Rome in 1616, relates, in some degree to insects; and, before we arrive at the illustrations of Hoefnagle, we have a work to notice from the pen of Archibald Simpson, the first work on entomology published in North Britain, and bearing the following title, Hieroglyphica Animalium Terrestrium, &c., quæ in Scripturis Sacris inveniuntur et plurium aliorum, cum eorum interpretationibus, 4to.

We now arrive at a period when the aid of painting, and the talents of some of its most successful professors, were devoted to the illustration of entomological works. The first of those which appeared with this decided improvement was a thin quarto, containing 226 miscellaneous figures of insects, published under the title of Diversæ Insectorum volitantium Icones ad vivum depicta, per D. J. Hoefnagle, typisque mandatæ à N. J. Vischer. Four years after appeared the work of Mouffet which we have already noticed; and which had 500 wood-cuts.

This work is divided into two parts, the first containing twenty-nine chapters, the latter fortytwo, under which are described the several tribes of insects, known among the early writers by the names of vespis, muscis, papilionibus, cicindela, blattis, cantharide, bupresti, meloe, &c., terms familiarised to the Linnæan scholar, but which are not always applied by Linnæus to the particular tribes of insects, designated by these names in the work before us. Hollar, another artist, gained considerable reputation in 1646, by his iconical work, Muscarum, Scarabæorum Vermiumque variæ figuræ et formæ omnes primo ad vivum coloribus depictæ et ex collectione Arundeliana, &c., published at Antwerp. The drawings were preserved in the Arundel cabinet; the plates are etchings in the usual style of the artist. In the same year appeared a compilation of a Dr. Johnson, entitled Historia Naturalis; in which the insects, occupying one book out of four, are illustrated by twenty-eight plates engraved on copper by the author. In 1658 appeared an English translation of Mouffet's work; and in the same year Goedart's first Dutch work on insects, afterwards translated by Dr. Mey, minister of Middleburgh, under the title of Metamorphoses et Historia Naturalis Insectorum; a second volume was translated by M. P. Veezaerdt, minister in Zealand, who added some remarks of his own. For the space of about twenty years Goedart devoted great attention to the study of insects, and followed them through their progressive changes with great precision: Another translation of this latter part was after wards published by Dr. Mey, with a farther addition of notes. Lister allows those annotators no credit for their labors: Goedart,' he observes, 'left his writings in Dutch: his Latin interpreters,' says he, have added comments indeed, but were men wholly ignorant in natural history, and their comments are mere rhapsodies, and altogether impertinent to the explication of any one history of Goedartius.' Dr. Lister re-arranged and corrected this work, and added at the same time many original observations. In 1664 a quarto, relating to insects as Objects of Microscopical Observation, was published by Power; and the following year Hook's Micrographia, treating of Minute Insects. In 1667 C. Merret published, in London, the earliest book treating exclusively of British insects, entitled Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicarum, continens Vegetabilia, Animalia, et Fossilia, in hac Insula reperta inchoatus. It contains a brief catalogue of such species as were known to Dr. Merret, with a concise descriptive sentence, by way of name. In the first volume of the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, an account of the insects enumerated is given by Haworth.

A work entitled Tractatus Physicus de Tarantula, which appeared in the year 1668 at Lyons, is, though a respectable description of this curious insect, a small duodecimo of seventy pages. The same year was published in London, the general work of an English entomologist, Charleton, under the title of Onomasticon Zoicon, pluriorumque animalium differentias et nomina propria pluribus linguis exponens, in which we

have a systematic arrangement of insects, after the manner of Aldrovandus. There is a mantissa of this work printed in folio in Oxford in 1677. Another elementary work on entomology was published at Leipsic, the year after the first part of Charleton's work appeared, in quarto, entitled Dissertatio de Insectis in Genere, &c. Jacob Wolff.

Redi's Experimenta circa Generationem Insectorum, for the time in which it appears (1671), is described by Mr. Donovan as an interesting little book. Its author combats the doctrine of equivocal generation, maintained among the ancient philosophers, and deduces its fallacy from a variety of experiments and observations, of great critical accuracy; in the course of which he demonstrates that every living creature is produced from an egg. The same work contains about thirty figures of the lice peculiar to particular birds, such as the pigeon, swan, pie, heron, &c. The same writer also published his work on the generation of insects in his native language, Esperienze in torno alla Generazione degl' Insetti, 1688. There are several other useful tracts by Redi on natural history.'

We now come to the era of Swammerdam and Ray, who first excited the attention of naturalists to the necessity of a more perfect system of entomology, and who both suggested their metamorphoses as the natural basis for a system. Swammerdam's original work was first printed in 1669 in Dutch, with a Latin title. It was illustrated with thirteen copper-plates. Many years elapsed before its merits were in any manner acknowledged; and it was not until after his death that it was translated into the French language. This was shortly after followed by an English, and other editions. Swammerdam divided his insects into four groups, the characters being taken from their metamorphosis and economy. The first undergo no change, such as spiders, onisci, &c. (The Crustacea, Myriapoda, Arachnoida, and Acari, of the moderns). The second includes those which, after leaving the egg, appear under the form of the perfect insect, but have no wings, in which state they eat and grow, till, having shed their skin, they appear in the winged form, and are capable of propagating their kind (The modern orders Orthoptera, Dermaptera, Dictuoptera, Hemiptera, and some of the Neuroptera). In the second group are comprehended those insects which appear, when hatched from the egg, under the form of a caterpillar, which, when full grown, changes into a chrysalis, where it remains until the parts are fully developed. The insects included under this head are, the orders Coleoptera and Aptera. The fourth group comprehends those which, having attained their pupa state, do not divest themselves of their skin, namely, the Hymenoptera and Diptera.

Claude Perrault, one of the most learned exotic entomologists of his age, author of several very valuable papers in the Memoirs of the French Academy, published a folio work in Paris, entitled Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire Naturelle des Animaux, 1671.

We cannot detail the numerous minor illustrations of the insect economy which now

appeared. Among the most remarkable are Dr. Lister's p is papers and work on spiders, relating chiefly to those indigenous in England, and arranged and designated by concise specific characters. The last is in quarto, and was printed at London in 1678; the appendix, De Araneis addenda et emendanda, &c. in 1681. There is a translation of this work in the German language, by F. W. H. Martini, printed in 1778. In 1682 this gentleman printed, at York, Johannes Godartius of Insects, done into English, and methodised, with the addition of notes; the figures etched upon copper by Mr. F. Pl. The name of Lister does not appear; but the initials at the close of the address to the reader are M. L. The impression consisted, as the preface acquaints us, but of 150 copies, which were intended only for the curious; and, in the course of nearly 130 years, it may be naturally concluded many of these must have been lost. The notes in this book are very copious. In 1685 an edition of Goedart, by Lister, appeared in Latin. In this work Dr. Lister has distributed his materials of the work into a new form of arrangement, the merits of which are too obvious, not to be noticed as an important improvement in entomology. He divides them into ien sections, as follow:-1. Those with erect wings, and angulated pupa: Butterflies. 2. Those with horizontal wings, proceeding from caterpillars, called by Goedart, Geometræ. 3. Those with deflexed wings: Moths. 4. Libellulæ, or dragon-flies. 5. Bees. 6. Beetles. 7. Grasshoppers. 8. Flies with two wings. 9. Onisci, or millepedes. 10. Spiders.

In 1691 Mad. M. S. Marian, or Gräffinn, the wife of John Andrew Gräffinn, of Frankfort, published Der Raupen wunderbare verwandelung und sonderbare blumen-nahrang, which relates principally to European insects, of the order Lepidoptera. In early life this lady had imbibed a taste for the study of insects, from being occupied at times in painting these objects as ornaments to her flower-pieces. The task of painting insects she performed with tolerable accuracy; yet there is a stiffness in the outline, and a peculiar exuberance of style, incompatible with any faithful resemblance of nature.' Many of her original drawings are preserved in the British Museum.

In 1687 the celebrated Leuwenhoek produced his Anatomia seu interiora rerum, cum Animatarum tum Inanimatarum, ope et beneficio exquisitissimorum microscopiorum detecta. One of the first papers of this acute observer appears in the eighth volume of the Philosophical Transactions, and is entitled A Specimen of some Observations made by a Microscope contrived by M. Leuwenhoek. His communications to the world after this became numerous: we refer the curious reader to Transactions of the Royal Society, from the eighth to the thirty-second volume; and to various publications printed at Leyden and Delft in 1686, 1693, 1697, 1704, &c., for the most valuable of them. Geyereus, in

1687, wrote a treatise on the medical effect of Spanish flies (cantharides), entitled Tractatus Physico-medicus de Cantharidibus.

In 1658 Stephen Blankaart, a physician of Amsterdam, published a work, entitled Schon Berg der Rupsen, Wormen, Maden en vliegende Dierkens daar uit voort-kommende; the plates of which are admirably executed. It treats of the larvæ of various insects; but Frisch and Lyonet consider it but a superficial production. A second edition was published at Leipsic in 1690.

Three years after, Germany and the north of Europe being overrun with prodigious swarms of locusts, several naturalists of ability examined and published upon the structure of that animal. The most considerable of these productions were that of Hebenstreit, De Locustis immenso agmine aërem nostrum implentibus, et quid portendere putentur, and consists of sixty-five pages and one plate: and that of Ludolphus, entitled, Dissertatio de Locustis, anno præterito immensa copia in Germaniâ visis, cum diatribâ, quâ sententia autoris de " defenditur. The last is a folio of eighty-eight pages, embellished with figures.

But we must pass to the more important works of Ray and Petiver in England, and those of the indefatigable Reaumur in France; works which are consulted to the present day, and serve in no small degree to sustain the reputation of this science. In 1702 Petiver produced the first decade of his Gazophylacium naturæ et artis, the publication of which was carried on progressively till for about ten years after, during which the work was extended to ten decades, each containing plates exclusive of the classical and topical catalogues. This work relates to insects among other animals, plants, and fossils. About twelve months before the author's death, which happened in 1718, there was, however, another work printed by him under the title of Papilionum Britanniæ Icones, &c. A work was published by Ray relating to English butterflies on this branch of science in 1705, under the title of Methodus Insectorum, seu in methodum aliqualem digesta; which must be considered only as the introduction to the great work Historia Insectorum, which the world received in 1710, through the care of Dr. Derham; for Ray did not live to see it published. Insects are in this work defined to be animals, having their bodies divided more or less by incisions. The first division, αμεταμορφωτα, undergo no change, and consist of, 1. Aroča, or those without legs, under which he comprehended the class vermes (anneleides Cuvier), and some intestinal worms (entozoa); 2. Pedata, including the classes arachnoida, myriapoda, insecta ametabolia, and ome of the crustacea malacostraca edriophthalma. The second division, peraμoppwra, pass through the state of larvæ, and contain all the insecta metabolia.

Mr. Kirby supplies us with the following di gested Table of this able naturalist's system :

These are all Annelida.

8

Scolopendra.

4

6

17

7 Julus.

Larvæ. 3 Various Aptera and the Bed Bug. Nymphon F. Scorpio. Spiders, Phalangia, and Mites. 11 Lepidoptera. 12 Apis Bombus, &c. 13 Vespida. 10 This section is divided by the author into thirteen tribes. 9 Annelida. 15 Crabro, Philanthus, Cerceris, &c. 16 14 Andrena, Halictus, Nomada, &c. Tenthredo L.? Ichneumon, &c. Trichoptera K. 18 Pimpla Manifes19 Our author has followed Swammerdam in this unnatural separation of those Diptera tator, and other Ichneumonida, with a long ovipositor. whose metamorphosis is coarctate from the rest; and in associating with them the Ichneumones minuti L, whose metamorphosis is really different. Into this error both were led by system.