"Hanc veniam damus, petimusque vicissim:"
and I shall express my trust that you will overlook any errors of mine; and doubtless I shall not be free from them--
"---------Quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura----"
The two kinds of articulation of the head which our learned author has stated as the principal ones, will, I think, be found upon examination not so widely distant as his expressions seem to indicate; for in fact in all insects, as well as the _Orthoptera_, this part is _suspended_ by a membrane or ligament which unites the margins of the occipital cavity with those of the anterior one of the prothorax: thus forming all round some protection to the organs that are transmitted from the head through the latter part to the rest of the body. Though the head in most _Orthoptera_ is not partly received into the cavity of the prothorax, as is the case in the Order _Coleoptera_, but is rather suspended to it, yet in some instances, for example in the mole-cricket (_Gryllotalpa vulgaris_), it is partially inserted.
Again: when, in his _first_ mode of articulation by contact of solid parts, he speaks of one or two smooth tubercles of the neck, with their corresponding cavities in the prothorax, as forming the most common conformation, you would expect to find examples of this in very many insects; yet upon a close examination, unless in _Oryctes nasicornis_[1178], and perhaps in others of the _Dynastidæ_ MacLeay, you would scarcely meet with any thing that could be called a tubercle and its corresponding cavity in the neck or prothorax of any Lamellicorn or Capricorn beetle that you might chance to examine. You would find, indeed, that the occiput was usually smooth and very slippery, as if lubricated; that in its margin were one or two notches (_Myoglyphides_), with muscles attached to them; that in the former of these tribes, the _Lamellicorns_, it projected on each side so as to form a more or less prominent angle; and that the throat (_jugulum_) was very convex, and lodged in a cavity of the lower margin of the prothorax: but further appearances of tubercles &c. you would in vain look for even in this tribe; and in the _Capricorns_ you would find that the general conformation in this respect belonged to our learned author's _second_ mode of solid articulation, resembling that of the majority of the weevils (_Curculio_ L.), in which the head has no projecting angles or tubercles, or other elevation, but is received usually into the circular cavity of the prothorax.