Mr. SeExcx's Monograph of the Genus Choleva. 125 
Doct. Forster, qui regiones invisit circa polum antarcticum sitas, 
neque ibi nova insectorum genera,:sed paucissimas tantummodó 
species, se deprehendisse, narrat. Unde patet, genera insectorum 
nova admodum esse rara, nisi ante cognita quispiam vellet sepa- 
rata, ut Hydroum a Dytiscis, Ipsidem a Dermestibus.” 
From this it is obvious that Linné neither adinitted the insta- 
bility.of his entomological system, nor was conscious of its in- 
congruity with that which he had adopted in Botany. From his 
own long continued observation, and that of his travelling pupils, 
he infers, that few new genera of insects exist. And though he 
seems to admit tbat some of the old genera might be divided, 
the examples which he cites, prove that he was far from contem- 
plating any general or numerous divulsions of this kind. 
The anomaly'in question may. probably be more satisfactorily 
explained by adverting to the small number of entomological 
compared with botanical objects, with which Linné was ac- 
quainted. In that process of generalization which the mind adopts 
for the purpose of easily recollecting numerous facts, upon which 
is founded the institution of the groupes of natural objects termed. 
genera, we do not usually subdivide our assemblages of ideas, 
until their accumulation bas rendered it necessary. No more 
than 87 species of Scarabeus, 95 of Curculio, and 83 of Cerambyr, 
had ever been seen by Linné. Had he known the 657 species of 
his genus Scarabeus, the 725 of Curculio, and the 485 of Cerambyx, 
which crowd the pages of Fabricius's last work, there can be no 
reasonable doubt that he would have admitted the claim of such 
hosts to be deemed each a natural family including several genera, 
` to be fully as well founded as that of the Papilionaceous, Umbelli- 
ferous, and Cruciate tribes of plants. And if he thought it pro- 
per to divide 893 species of Coleoptera (the whole number de- 
scribed in the last edition of the Systema Natura) into 30 genera, 
Aa r it 
