On the Impediments to the Study of Natural History. 325 



appalling scale of primary and subordinate characters : 1 . Sub- 

 order ; 2. Section; 3. Subsection; 4. Tribe; 5. Subtribe; 

 6. Stirps; 7. Family; 8. Genus; 9. Subgenus. 



Instances without end might be given of the increased dif- 

 ficulty arising from this attenuated refinement. Thus the 

 Eurymus Philodice, a butterfly closely connected with Pap. 

 Edusa and some other well-known British species, and easily 

 cognisable under the division of the Danaicandidi of Linnaeus 

 and the Clouded Yellows of Haworth forming part of that 

 division, according to modern refinement is referred from 

 Fam. Papilionida to the Juliform stirps of one author, to the 

 subfamily Coliadce of another, till it arrives at the subgenus 

 Eurymus, where it is placed (if we are correct in construing 

 another highly distinguished author's meaning,) as the only 

 species of a strictly typical character illustrating a particular 

 group. Again, I might quote the very language of one of 

 our most scientific writers, who in describing a species of one 

 of his groups (a term in itself sufficiently indefinite) is con- 

 strained to admit the force of my argument : " It is the mis- 

 fortune," he observes, " of not understanding the typical struc- 

 ture, and the principles which regulate its variation in higher 

 groups, that in defining the characters of a lesser, we can 

 form no just idea of its relative value; whether, in short, we 

 should consider it as a genus or a subgenus, or whether it is 

 typical, aberrant, or osculant !" Here it may be further re- 

 marked, we find grouping within grouping, the very term 

 itself in its simplest sense, being sufficiently vague and inde- 

 finite, calculated to make confusion worse confounded, or, as 

 Fabricius no mean authority observed when speaking of 

 minute investigations, endangering the study itself by " re- 

 ducing it to a chaotic state." And yet the very writer whose 

 words we have quoted, concludes his paragraph by calling it 

 a mere temporary evil. Surely he must have forgotten his 

 previous remark on the obscurity of definitions and descrip- 

 tions, " that in general they were so vague and short, that, 

 unless a figure was quoted to elucidate them, it became totally 

 impossible to ascertain the precise species intended." A remark 

 in which I most fully concur. One other instance, and I have 

 done: A butterfly (we believe a solitary specimen) was found 

 by Dr. Horsfield in Java, very closely resembling the Papilio 

 Jairus of Fabricius, differing only in the form of the anterior 

 wings; and yet on this distinctive discrepancy, the vagueness 

 of which will be noticed below, a new genus under the arbi- 

 trary and unmeaning title of Drusilla has been formed. 



I shall now proceed to make a few brief remarks on the 

 vagueness of definitions, showing that notwithstanding these 



modern 



