the Natural Distribution of Insects and Fungi. 257 



ways analogous at their coiTesponding points. Consequently, 

 in every circle he admits the existence of two central groups 

 and three radial ; that is, in all, Five natural groups. Now 

 this truly is the case throughout the whole animal kingdom. 

 Organized Matter is the centrum of matter, and is comjiosed 

 of animals and vegetables. Articulata*, or animals possessing 

 an articulated axis, foi'm the centrum of the animal kingdom, 

 and are composed of Vertebrata and Annulosa. The Ptilota 

 of Aristotle, or winged insects, form the centrum of the An- 

 milosa, and are divided uito Mandibulata and Haustellata. 

 And so on, we shall ever find a natural group to be a circle 

 of five minor groups, and that two of these minor gi'oups form 

 what M. Fries would call a centrum, or, more correctly, have 

 some character in common which distinguishes them from the 

 other three. That neither of these groups, viz. Organized 

 Matter, Articulata, or Ptilota, is a circle, must be obvious to 

 every observer; and consequently they do not fall within the 

 sphere of M. Fries's definition already given of a natural 

 group, but each of them forms two circles, which theiefore, 

 according to our author, are natural groups. We might turn 

 even to the well-known great division of the vegetable king- 

 dom into phaenogamous or cotyledonous and cryptogamous or 

 acotyledonous plants, where the former are clearly the ce?i- 

 trum, and divisible into two natural groups ; but surely enough 

 has been said to show, that the notion of M. Fries on this head 

 is in every respect, but the mode of expressing it, the same 

 identically with mine. When he states the determinate num- 

 ber to be four, and we investigate the signification attached by 

 him to this pi'oposition, we discover that it is in effect five. 

 How M. Fries was led to the number four, we have already 

 endeavoured to explain ; and it is truly worthy of observation, 

 as an almost conclusive argument for the determinate number 

 being five, that M. Fries himself is at last obliged to adopt it. 

 This open abandonment of his theoretical number Jour, which 

 we have seen that he had virtually abandoned before, takes 

 place moreover in that part of his work which, relating to the 

 more minute groups, is therefore most independent of theory, 

 and most subjected to the keenness of practical observers. Here, 

 in brief, he finds himself tied down to stubborn facts, and it is 

 rather interesting to mark the result. The only genera of 

 Hijmenomijceles Pileati which he discovers to be divisible ore, 

 Agaricus, Canlharcllus, Thelcphora, Hydmm, Boletus, Polij- 

 porus and Dcedalea, some of whicli, as Agariais, are, as he 



• This name has heea applied to the Annulosa, as chaj'acterizing them 

 ulone, but improperly, iiiasiiiuch as tlic vertebrated animals are articulated. 



Vol. C2. No, 306. Of/. 1823. Kk says, 



