CONCLUSIONS. 283 



in introducing any one of these groups into our systems 

 without showing : 1st, that it is a natural group; 2nd, 

 that it is a group of this or that kind, so as to avoid hence- 

 forth calling groups that may be genera, families ; groups 

 that may be orders, families; groups that may be orders 

 or classes, classes or branches respectively; 3rd, that the 

 characters by which these groups may be recognized are 

 in fact respectively specific, generic, family, ordinal, classic, 

 or typical characters, so that our works may no longer 

 exhibit the annoying confusion, which is to be met almost 

 everywhere, of generic characters in the diagnoses of spe- 

 cies, or of family and ordinal characters in the character- 

 istics of classes and branches. 1 



It may, perhaps, be said that all this will not render 

 the study of Zoology more easy. I do not expect that it 

 will; but if an attentive consideration of what I have 

 stated in the preceding pages respecting classification 

 should lead to a more accurate investigation of all the 

 different relations existing among animals, and between 

 them and the world in which they live, I shall consider 

 myself as having fully succeeded in the object I have had 

 in view from the beginning, in this inquiry. Moreover, 

 it is high time that certain zoologists, who would call 

 themselves investigators, should remember, that natural 

 objects, to be fully understood, require more than a pass- 

 ing glance ; 2 they should imitate the example of astrono- 



1 As I do not wish to be personal, indiscriminately to distinguish all 



I will refrain from quoting examples these groups. 



to justify this assertion. I would 2 The mere indication of the exist- 

 only request those who care to be ence of a species is a poor addition 

 accurate, to examine critically almost to our knowledge, when compared to 

 any description of species, any cha- those monographs in which either 

 racterization of genera, of families, the structure or the development of 

 of orders, of classes, or of types, to a single animal is fully illustrated ; 

 satisfy themselves that characters of such as Lyonnet's Anatomy of the 

 the same kind are introduced almost Cossus, Bojauus' Anatomy of the 



