LIXNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. Uii 



iications has been too often commented upon to need repetition. It 

 is now, I believe, universally admitted that a species is the totality 

 of the individuals connected together by certain resemblances or 

 affinities the result of a common descent. It is also acknowledged 

 that for scientific purposes these species should be arranged in 

 groups according to resemblances or affinities more remote than in 

 the case of species, although here commences the great difference of 

 opinion as to the meaning of these remoter affinities, whether they 

 also are the result of a common descent, or of that supposed imita- 

 tion of a type which I have above alluded to. For those, however, 

 who have once connected affinity with consanguinity, it is difficult 

 to recede from so ready an explanation of those mj'^sterious resem- 

 blances and differences the study of which must be the ruling prin- 

 ciple to guide us in our classifications. AU this has now been fully 

 explained by more able pens than mine ; my only object in repeating 

 it is to point out clearly the need of treating aU systematic groups, 

 from the order down to the genus, species, or variety, as races of a 

 similar nature, collections of individuals more nearly related to each 

 other than to the individuals composing any other race of the same 

 grade, and of abolishing the use of the expression type of a genus 

 or other group in any other than a purely historical sense as a ques- 

 tion of nomenclature*. If a genus has to be divided, our laws of 

 nomenclature require the original name to be retained for that sec- 

 tion which includes the species which the founder of the genus had 

 more specially observed in framing his character ; and therefore, and 

 for that reason only, it becomes necessary to inquire which was or 

 which were the so-called typical species— the biologist's (or, as it 

 were, the artist's), not Nature's type. 



Without repeating what I have often said of the comparative value 

 of ^Monographs and Faunas or Floras over miscellaneous descriptions, 

 I may observe that the immense progress made in the accumulation 

 of known species henceforth diminishes still more the relative 

 importance to science of the addition of new forms when compared 

 with the due coUocatiou and correct appreciation of those already 

 kno^vn. Much has been done of late years in the latter respect ; 

 but yet some branches of biology, and perhaps entomology more, 

 than any other, are very much in arrear as to supplying us with 



* For the purposes of instruetion some one species is often named as a type 

 of a genus— that is to say, a.s fairly representing the most prevalent characters ; 

 but to prevent any confusion with the imaginary type, it would surely be better 

 to call it an exampJe, as, indeed, is often done. In geographical biology the word 

 type is used again in anotlier sense, which, however, does not load to any inis- 

 understnnding. 



Lixx. PRoc. — Session 1870-71. a 



