over, resulting from the immediate adoption of the proposed system of "solitary confinement" with shortened sentences in the gaols where the construction would allow of its being introduced, that the great economy of the new system as compared with the old would at once be made apparent, and municipal councils and other public bodies who cannot be persuaded to make the necessary alterations in their gaols from motives of humanity or morality might yet be induced to make them from motives of economy.

It is not necessary to discuss here at any length the question, which is merely one of detail, as to the time and manner of making the proposed change in our prison system. I shall merely remark in passing that it appears to me the change might be at once introduced into all those gaols which should be certified by the Board to the Government to be adapted for it, and that the remaining prisons might be from time to time proclaimed in the official Gazette as coming within the meaning of the Act, on its being duly certified to the Government by the Board that the necessary alterations had been made in them to adapt them to the purpose.

The system thus strongly recommended by the Committee of the House of Lords has indeed already been partially tried in England, and with the most satisfactory results. In 1839 an Act was passed (2 and 3 Vic., cap. 56) authorizing the separate confinement of prisoners during the whole or any part of their imprisonment in gaol. The following extract from the Report of the Inspector of Prisons for the Southern District of England,' for the year 1862, shows how well the Act has worked:

"It is very satisfactory to refer to the great and manifold improvements that have taken place in the construction and discipline in the prisons of England and Wales since the enactment of the Statute 2 and 3 Victoria, cap. 56, by which the separate confinement of prisoners, as contra-distinguished from solitary confinement, was first sanctioned by law. In the year 1843, when I had the honor to be appointed to my present office, there were two prisons only in the part of the country now comprised in the Southern District, in which advantage had been taken of the provisions of that Act. These prisons, at the time

*

to which I refer, contained less than an aggregate number of 200 certified cells, whereas at the present time there are more than 8000 which have received the legal sanction to be used in the same form of discipline. In indicating this change as evidence of the growing conviction of the advantages which have attended the adoption of separate confinement, it should be mentioned that more than nine. tenths of the cells so certified are contained in prisons expressly built for the exercise of this discipline, and the remainder have been obtained by alterations of existing cells, of so expensive a character that they would not have been undertaken without a strong conviction of the superiority of the form of discipline to be carried out in them."

The Inspector adds that the number of commitments to the prisons thus altered, rapidly decreased, and that in many gaols it was reduced to one-half what it had been ten years before.

The provisions of the Imperial statute just referred to, respecting the separate confinement of prisoners, leave the matter to the discretion of the local authorities. But the committee of the House of Lords, in their report, recommend "that legislative measures be taken as speedily as possible to render the adoption of separation obligatory upon all gaols and houses of correction in England and Wales, and that the payment of the proportion of the charge, now issued from the public revenues in aid of the county and borough prisons be made contingent, in each case, on the adoption of the separate system."

If the adoption of the "separate system "be necessary in England, where every gaol possesses in its chaplain, its schoolmaster-its system of hard labor-so many agencies to check or counteract the evil effects of the association of the prisoners, how much more necessary is such a system in Canada, where our gaols are without chaplains, without school-masters, without any means of providing labor for our prisoners, and where, consequently, the system of association of prisoners is left wholly unchecked to produce its sad and bitter fruits.

In conclusion, I would observe that the subject which I have ventured to bring under your notice this evening, is one of no ordinary practical importance to society. It belongs, however, to a class of

social questions which have not, in my opinion, received adequate attention from the thinking and educated men in the community.

It is mainly with the hope of awakening, in some degree, a personal interest in these great social problems among the members of this society, and through them in the public generally, that I have been induced to address you on the present subject. No important changes in our prison system are likely to be effected until those changes are demanded and supported by public opinion, and the first step towards creating this public opinion is to excite a personal interest in these questions among thinking men. It is the sum of personal interest, felt and expressed on such subjects by the intelligent minds of the community, which, in every free country, forms and moulds the character of public opinion; and it is this public opinion which ordains and shapes the laws and institutions of the land.

PAPER IX. THE ORDERS, SUB-ORDERS AND

GENERA OF INSECTS.

BY WILLIAM COUPER,

Cor. Mem. Ent. Soc., Philad.; Nat. Hist. Soc., Montreal; Assistant Sec. Lit. and Hist. Society, Quebec.

[Read before the Society, 20th April, 1864.]

THE animal kingdom consists of four great divisions, which are called Departments.-It contains about 250,000 species.

I. VERTEBRATA-Mammals, Birds and Fishes.

II. ARTICULATA-Insects, Lobsters, Crabs, &c.
III. MOLLUSCA-Cuttle-fishes, Snails, Clams, &c.

IV. RADIATA-Sea Urchins, Jelly-fishes, Polyps and Star-fishes The ARTICULATA are animals whose body is composed of rings or joints. It embraces three classes:

1. Insects.*

2. Crustaceans.

3. All forms similar to the earthworm.

The Insects include three orders :—

a. Manducata. Those which have jaws for dividing their food, consisting of wasps, bees, ants and ichneumon-flies; beetles, grasshoppers, crickets and dragon-flies.

b. Suctoria. Those with a trunk for sucking fluids. The various bugs, cicadae, &c.; butterflies and moths and the two-winged flies are examples.

c. Aptera. Those destitute of wings, of which the flea is a good example. Apterous genera occur also in Manducata and Suetoria. We find the first wingless parasites among the twowinged flics. In Hemiptera or bugs, some of the lower groups are wingless parasites, and the wingless lower genera Fully one hundred and fifty thousand have already been described.

T

of Neuroptera present more analogies than other insects to the Myriapods.

The above three classes are also sub-divided into seven divisions, occupying an intermediate rank between orders and families, and called sub-orders.

The classification of old authors is as follows:

1. Coleoptera-Beetles.

2. Orthoptera-Grasshoppers, Locusts, &c.
3. Hemiptera-Bugs.

4. Neuroptera-Dragon-flies, &c.

5. Hymenoptera-Bees, Wasps, &c.

6. Lepidoptera-Butterflies and Moths.

7. Diptera-Two-winged flies.

1. Beetles are known by their hard bodies, free and well-developed mouth parts, and by their first pair of wings being hardened into sheaths, which are termed elytra. They pass a complete metamorphosis to the imago or perfect state. Many of the species are aquatic. Beetles have been studied much more than other insects; in this country there have been described some 8,000 species,* but from the difficulty of finding their larvæ and carrying them through their successive stages of growth, the immature forms of but few native species are known. The family forms are easy to distinguish and characterize; the genera arc based upon marked changes in the different parts of the body, which vary greatly, and some of the best characters lie in the relative size of the head-pieces and those pieces that make up the flanks of the three thoracic rings, and the basal joints of the legs. The relative size and the sculpture of the body and of the elytra; and lastly, the coloration, which varies

*The definition of "species" is one of the most difficult tasks assigned the Naturalist. It corresponds very nearly with the common term 64 sort," or "kind." It is that race or chain of beings, descended from common parents, and which always produces the same kind, or very nearly so. For instance, the white oak is a species, the black oak is another; and the acorn or fruit of one will not produce a tree of the other kind. Insects being small animals, great care is necessary to avoid confounding the species with another, or making two species out of one where the sexes differ. On the fact of the permanency of species hangs the entire system of classification. For if what is now a white oak may in a century produce a black oak, or a chestnut, and what is now a frog may in five hundred years produce a bird, a description given by Aristotle or Linnæus, would be of no service to us of this day. In fact, Natural History would cease to be a science.