400 SYSTEM OF INSECTS. 
With regard to their characters, we are not to place 
our groups upon Procrustes' bed, and lop or torture 
them to accommodate them to every standard we may 
have fixed for them : assuming one set of characters for 
suborders, another for tribes, and so for every other 
group ; for the value of characters varies, — those that in 
some cases are common to an Order, in others indicate 
only sections, or tribes, or genera and species, or some- 
times even sexes. What is constant in one group is not 
so in another, and vice versa; so that it is a vain labour 
to search for a universal character. If it is our wish 
really to trace the labyrinth of nature, we can only ac- 
complish it by a careful perusal and examination of her 
various groups. It is singular how much and how far 
various Entomologists, and those of the very highest 
class, have been misled by a kind of favouritism to give 
too universal a currency to certain characters for which 
they have conceived a predilection. Some have been 
the champions of the antennce ; others of the tropin ; 
others again of the wings ; and others of the metamor- 
phosis. These are all characters which within certain 
limits lead us right, and are an index to a natural group; 
but if we follow them further, we leave the system of na- 
ture, and are perplexed in the mazes of a method*. 
Let us now see whether we can pitch upon any sub- 
order which will afford an example of every group that 
we have lately named. Mr. MacLeay, from a consi- 
deration of the larvae of that Order, has divided the Co- 
leoptera into five primary groups that may be denomi- 
nated Suborders. Whether these are all natural groups 
" See above, p. 3G">. 
