200 On the ^afural Dislrihitiou of animated Nature. 



they liave to the other three — if, I repeat, this could be proved, 

 should we not be justified in affirming that the rule, so far as 

 concerns Insects and Fungi, is one and the same? The pos- 

 sibility of thus distributing the annulose animals has, however, 

 lieen demonstrated already in the Iloice Entomologicce ; and it 

 is the way in which we ought to take die rule that only now 

 remains to be investigated. In short, since only two methods * 

 liave yet been found to coincide widi facts as presented by 

 nature, the question is, whether we ought to account Fungi as 

 divisible into five groujrs, — or into four, of which one forms 

 two of equal degree. Now I think it may without difficulty be 

 shown, irom our autlior's own observations and rules, that 

 there is only one determinate number which regulates the di- 

 stribulion of Fungi, and that five is this number. 

 [To be continued.] 



XL. A Jl'io Observations on the Natural Distribution of ani- 

 mated Nature. Bi/ A Fellow or the Linnean Society. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 



Gentlemen, May 1823. 



AS the natural arrangement of animated forms has gradual!}' 

 advanced into a very dignified and important science, a 

 tew remarks on the subject, although anonymous, may not be 

 unacceptable to your zoological readers : because the objects 

 themselves ai'e so immediately or remotely connected with 

 every thing we esteem, and are withal so multifarious, that 

 much more remains for future ages to develo}>, than has al- 

 ready been achieved. 



* The number seven might also perhaps, for obvious reasons, occur to tlie 

 min;!, were it allowable in natural history to ground any reasoning except 

 U()on facts of organization. The idea of this number is however imme- 

 diately laid aside, on enileavonring to discover seven primary divisions of 

 equal dc^Tce in the animal kingdom. It is easy, indeed, to imagine tlie 

 prevalence of a number ; the difliciilty is to prove it. The naturalist, there- 

 fore, re(]uires something more than the statement of a number, before he 

 allows either a preconceived opinion or any analogy no: founded on or- 

 ganic structure to liave an influence on his I'avourite science. He requires 

 its application to nature and its illustration by facts. As yet, however, no 

 nuinbers have been shown to prevail in natural groups but five,— or, which 

 is the same thing, fou •, of which one group is divisible into two. Perhaps, 

 indeed, the most clear method of expressing ourselves on this subject is to 

 say that, laying aside osculant grouiis, every natural group is divisible into 

 five, wliich always admit of a binary distribution, that is, into two and 

 three. 



Assuming 



