the natural Dktrihution of Insects and Fungi. 63 



ralist fancies that the determinate number into which these aco- 

 tyledonous plants are distributed ought to be four ; but finds it 

 necessary, in order that it may coincide with observed facts, to 

 make it virtually five. Nay, at last, in spite of the prejudice of 

 theory, he is unable to withstand the force of truth, throws him- 

 self into the arms of Nature, and declares that where he actually 

 finds his natural group complete in all its parts, there the deter- 

 minate number is 7?t;e. 



Now, on considering that his work was given to the world two 

 years after the first part of the Ilora EntomologiccE, it is clear 

 that, had M. Fries fixed at once on the number five, there might 

 have been room for supposing, that he had not altogether trusted 

 to his own observation, but had borrowed the idea of a quinary 

 distribution. As matters however at present stand, this suppo- 

 sition cannot for a moment be harboured ; and I cannot help 

 rejoicing that the strength of this beautiful theory should be so 

 completely brought home to the conviction of every mind, as it 

 must be, by observing the manner in which different persons 

 have respectively stumbled upon it in totally distinct depart- 

 ments of the creation. We may all possibly be wrong in part, 

 or even in much of our respective details ; but however this may 

 be, it is difficult not to believe that we are grasping at some 

 great truth, which a short lapse of time will perhaps develop in 

 all its beauty, and at length place in the possession of every 

 observer of nature. 



It may be well to note, that M. Fries draws in the clearest 

 manner a distinction between his Hysterophyta or Fungi, and the 

 Protophyta, which is a natural group consisting of the Linnaean 

 Algce and Lichenes. He proves that they form two distinct series 

 of vegetables having analogous exterior forms at their corre- 

 sponding points. Hence, according to what has preceded, the 

 Protophyta and Fungi form in the vegetable kingdom two primary 



groups 



