276 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
body can see, than to search for distinctions in its 
complex anatomical structure. | 
(188.) Before concluding this chapter, we shall 
offer a few remarks upon metamorphosis, in relation 
to the value of characters derived exclusively from 
its different variations. The early writers on natural 
history, previous to the time of Linnzeus, attached 
so much consequence to the transformations which 
the insect world underwent, that their classifications 
were mainly founded thereon. -Linneeus, for what 
precise reason does not exactly appear, decided on 
drawing the characters of his groups from the 
perfect insect alone; probably considering, and we 
think justly, that distinctions founded upon animals 
in their perfect state of existence, are more per- 
manent and valuable than such as are taken from 
their immatured structure. Be this, however, as it 
may, metamorphosis, of late years, has been again 
brought into notice, by one of the first entomo- 
logists of the age, whose theory on the natural 
arrangement of the insect kingdom (Annulosa) is 
mainly founded on the mode of its variation. There 
can be no doubt of the truth of the two propositions 
laid down by Mr. M‘Leay: first, that metamor- 
phosis is the grand distinction of the Annulosa; and, 
secondly, that the mode of its variation will indi- 
cate the natural arrangement of the whole of the ani- 
mals composing that class. Yet, while we admit the 
truth of this theory, we dissent from the application 
that is made of it. Metamorphosis, like all other 
characters, must not be made to. violate nature 
by fhe separation of naturally connected groups. 
For, the moment we do this, we should suspect we 
