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by the dry routine of their science, I do not pretend to 

 determine : be the solution, however, what it may, the 

 inference is practically the same, that the Annulosa 

 have not hitherto been sufficiently regarded, in the 

 great questions of zoological geography. But especially 

 have they been ignored during that most significant of 

 considerations which has been so ably brought forward 

 of late years by some of our keenest observers, namely, 

 the distribution of animals, as affected by geological 

 changes, on the earth's surface. 



It would be well if the collector of insects would 

 devote at least a tithe of his energies to the speculative 

 branch of his subject. Certain it is that much would 

 probably be advanced, at first, on slender premises ; and 

 would, as a consequence, fall to the ground, leaving no 

 record behind it. Yet such must inevitably be the case, 

 at the outset, in every region of inquiry ; and we are 

 prepared to expect it. It does not however follow that 

 good would not be developed also ; whilst we are confi- 

 dent of the fact, that unless the trial be made, it cannot 

 possibly arise. No question has ever yet been mooted 

 without beneficial results : it has either been shown to be 

 absurd, and has received its death-blow on the spot, or 

 else truth has been elicited (indirectly perhaps), which has 

 at once shed a new ray of light on some of its obscurest 

 bearings. And so, assuredly, it would be in the present 

 instance. We cannot doubt that there is much to be 

 discovered in the past history of insect dissemination, 

 which would tend, when rightly interpreted, to explain 



