206 Mr. W. S. MacLeay's Examination of 



it would be presumption in me to tell you that upon a little 

 deeper acquaintance with Zoology, you will see that neither 

 Vespertilio, Strix, nor Scarabaeus, as defined by Linnaeus, are 

 insulated groupes. As to Scarabaeus, indeed, I should be glad 

 to know by what characters you would insulate it. I happen 

 to have seen more than 2000 species of the Linnean genus 

 Scarabaeus, when Linnaeus himself saw little more than 80. 

 I suspect, therefore, that I have given quite as much time and 

 attention to the consideration of this Linnean genus as you, 

 although you, by a species of intuition, have got the start of 

 me. This must be my apology for daring still to brave your 

 polite imputation of having arrived at the acme of folly, and 

 for still imagining that I have done some service to Entomo- 

 logy in helping to subdivide so immense a groupe. You are 

 truly the first of naturalists, and I dare say will also have the 

 honour of being the last, who has written on Scarabaeus, and 

 pronounced it to be an insulated groupe. Perhaps it was 

 from their being so little abstract, and their descending so low 

 as to study the subject in nature, that those plodding entomo- 

 logists, Fabricius and Latreille, have had such difficulty in 

 finding a place for Sinodendron, Lethrus, &c., &c. As you 

 profess, two or three pages after, to look at Entomology with 

 the eye of a master, and to point out the difficulties and de- 

 fects of the science, you could not surely be ignorant that Fa- 

 bricius, whom Linnaeus called his master in Entomology, that 

 Latreille, Olivier, and Kirby, that in short every modern En- 

 tomologist who does not belong to what may be termed the 

 defunct or dying Linnean school of England, has found it ne- 

 cessary to subdivide the Linnean genus Scarabaeus. The 

 chair, therefore, of the Secretary of the Linnean Society, must 

 be placed on some peculiarly high eminence, when it entitles 

 a gentleman on the strength of having described three species 

 of Orchis, and perhaps twice as many Rushes, to dismiss all 

 Entomologists subsequent to Linnaeus with the compliment of 

 being a pack of fools. 



It is to be regretted, that so oracular an authority on Sy- 

 stems and Methods should not have shown wherein they differ 

 from each other. It only remains for me, therefore, in the in- 

 vestigation of your " first principles of arrangement," to ascer- 

 tain what distinction you, who are so apt to charge dissenters 

 from your maxims with the height of folly, make between ar- 

 tificial systems and the natural one. It would be curious, if 

 he who blames others " for not fully appreciating the difficulty 

 of this subject," should happen to have promulgated his prin- 

 ciples before he had made himself acquainted with the above 

 distinction. 



You 



