372 Mr. Burnett's Letter on 



system, ^);i,i^h, commences with 2 natural beings or existences, 

 viz. contbwio'aB 'dAd incontimious, tfee first of which divides 

 into 3, vizloxie intelligent and 2 unintelligent, time and space. 

 The diagrams also commence with two circles, the vegetable 

 aj^d [.animal, in the first of which only two subdivisions ^te 

 noted, and asterisks left to supply the other three (which has , 

 since been done) from the subdivision of the acotyledonous, or? 

 rather the cellulous plants. In the animal circle, 5 groupso 

 are made out by separating some of the zoophyta, under the- 

 name acrita, from the radiata, the vermes, and the insecta; ^ 

 which latter are again united with the Crustacea ; a union fbrit 

 which LinnfEus has been severely blamed. Then in the qui- ' 

 nary division of these five circles, the " consecrated number" 

 is completed by dividing, in the acrita, the polypes into 3, viz, 

 P, rudes, P. vaginati, and P. natantes, which 3, with the agas- 

 tria and intestina, complete the 5 ; the distributions should - 

 rather have been thus— 



'^ f "r Intestina, 



{Intestina, ("Rudes, "1 '^Ji-"'*: I Polypi Rudes. 



Polypi, ^ Vao;inati, [- instead of •g< Poly pi Vaginati, .-,.|\^ 

 Agastria, [Natantes, J -^ Polypi Natantes.' . '^ 



j^ ^,->,| 0. lAgastria. :in -jffl ^d 



vvnicn will shew the plan on which fives may be derived from , 

 threes. In the same manner, among the annulosa, themandi- ' 

 bulate and haustellate insects are divided ; while the trachean 

 and pulmonary arachnida are united. In the vertebrata, the 

 batrachian are separated from the other reptiles, while the 

 ornithorhynchus remains classed among the mammalia; and 

 Mr. Brookes, who has made the monotremes into a se- 

 parate class, has omitted to insert them as such in his publica- 

 tions the quinary system, for this would have made 6 classes 

 in one circle, instead of 5, although he has added two classes 

 of moUuscato the three, which were all that were originally in-^ 

 serted in the Horse Entomologicae ; and Kirby has well remarked, 

 that the ametabola, mandibulata, and haustellata, approach much 

 neairer to each other than they do to the other two classes of 

 his'cifde, annulosa, or than even these two last to eaclj^^cjufji^^^ .., 

 so ithat, under this view, it should primarily consist of 3 greater 

 groups, resoluble, it may he, into 5 smaller ones.' Thus, 



