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 Copley an 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 minutiae 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 extension, 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. rol. ii. pref. p. xliii. 



