NEGLECT OF COMPREHENSIVE ENQUIRIES. 345 
Petalocera Lamillicornes, — insects which every 
one is ambitious of collecting, but which no one 
among us thinks of investigating? We have, again, 
the splendid discovery of Thompson on the meta- 
morphosis of the Crustacea and of the Cirripeda. 
These discoveries, of which the last is worthy of 
Trembley or of Savigny, far from having been 
rewarded, as they deserved, by a Copleyan medal, 
have neither been investigated or verified ; they were 
scarcely noticed in our journals, and although made 
within the last few years, they seem to be alto- 
gether forgotten! It is alike irksome and unneces- 
sary to make further appeal to facts such as these, 
which verify too truly and too forcibly, the utter 
neglect of the philosophy of natural history in 
Britain, and this at the very time when frivolities of 
nomenclature and minutiz of species occupy the 
attention of its followers, and when its common- 
place facts and amusing details are dressed in po- 
pular language, published in every possible form, 
and perused with avidity. True it is that these 
cheap compilations and amusing collections of anec- 
dotes have awakened a very general taste for natu- 
ral history ; and so far they are useful; but we are 
looking at present, not to the eatension, whatever 
may be the ultimate result, but to the advancement 
of this science. And we unhesitatingly repeat, that 
its progress is more retrograde than otherwise.* If 
there is no taste for cultivating the higher investi- 
gations of zoology among those who are considered 
* See North. Zool. yol. ii. pref. p. xliii. 
