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 Linnaeus, attached 

 so much consequence to the transformations which 

 the insect world underwent, that their classifications 

 were mainly founded thereon. Linnaeus, 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 (An?iulosa) 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 the separation of naturally connected groups. 

 For, the moment we do this, we should suspect we 



