2.53 Mr. W. S. MacLeay on certain general Lwois regulating 



says, of llie first dignity; others, as CanthareUus, of tlie se- 

 cond*. Now every one of these genei'a, or at least their ty- 

 jiical groups, are divided by M. Fries himself into five, vvilii 

 the smgle exce})tion of CanthareUus ; and so truly natural or 

 dependent upon relations of analogy are these five subdivisions, 

 that he proposes to make use of one set of names for all, and 

 in fact does in general make use of the same name for analo- 

 gous groupsf. Nay more: when he has divided the well- 

 known genus Agariais mio five natural series, he observes, 

 " Singula series a natura fixe determinata clausa est leliquis 

 parallela. Tribus diversarum serierum analogas din eodem 

 nomine salutavi." So that Agaricus is, according to the con- 

 fession of M. Fries, formed of five natural series each closed 

 up ; in other words, each a circle, and corresponding at their 

 jiarallel points to such a degree, that he declares it possible to 

 assign the same names to the analogous groups. 



It were tedious to proceed much further on this subject ; and 

 therefore, without entering into the speculations, often unin- 

 telligible and always vague, of Plutarch, Sir Tliomas Brown, 

 Drebel, Linnaeus and others, as to the doctrine of quintessence 

 generally, we may at once set forth the last argument which 

 shall now be p.roduced for the existence of a quinary distribu- 

 tion in organized nature. It maybe stated thus: In the year 

 1817 I detected a quinary arrangement | in considering a 

 small portion of coleopterous insects; and in the year 1821 

 I attempted to'^^how that it prevailed gcnerall}' throughout 

 nature. In the same year (1821), and apparently without any 

 view beyond the particular case then before him, M. Decan- 

 dolle stated the natural distribution of Cruciferous plants to be 

 quinary. And again, in the same year, a third naturalist, 

 without the knowledge of either Decandolle's Memoire or 

 the Mora; Entomologiccc, and in a different part of Europe, 

 publishes what he considers to be the natural arrangement of 

 Fungi. Arguing a jiriori, this third naturalist fancies that the 

 determinate number into which these acotyledonous plants are 

 distributed ought to be four; but finds it necessary, in order 

 that it may coincide with observed facts, to make it virtually 

 five. Nay, at last, in spite of the prejudice of theory, he is 

 unable to withstand the Ibrce of truth, throws himself into the 

 arms of Nature, and declares that where he actually finds his 



* The groups here said to be of the second dignity, appear to be of the 

 same degree with the genera Plianceus and Scarabaus of the Hurce Enta- 

 wologica. 



■\ These five names are, Mcsopiis, Pteuropus, Mcrhma, Apus, and Re- 

 tupinahis. 



X Published in 18H). 



natural 



