INVESTIGATION OF INSECTS. 561 



to a higher wisdom ; and indeed it is through these that 

 we best descend to the study of species. 



I will suppose you have made yourself master of so 

 much of the technical language, particularly the names 

 and most important attributes of the principal organs of 

 insects, as will suffice for understanding descriptions, or 

 knowing these parts when you see them. I will also 

 further suppose that what was formerly said on these 

 subjects has been sufficiently studied, to enable you with- 

 out much difficulty or hesitation to say whether any 

 given object belongs to the Class Insecta or Arachnida, 

 or to which of their respective Orders a . You are there- 

 fore qualified to arrange your collection into its primary 

 groups. But you have seen that many others intervene 

 between the Order and the genus or species. As the 

 genera of Linne are mostly primary groups of Orders, 

 perhaps, setting aside such insects included in them by 

 him as your eye and their apparent characters convince 

 you have no claim to a place there, your next best 

 step would be to make yourself thoroughly acquainted 

 with them. When you have accurately marshalled 

 and intimately studied these groups, you will probably 

 have acquired an eye and a tact, experto crede, for group- 

 ing without book, and may proceed by analysis to re- 

 solve your whole collection, as nearly as possible, into as 

 many as nature seems to indicate to you. In doing this 

 you will doubtless at first fall into many errors; but these, 

 practice and a closer examination will in time enable 

 you to rectify. Having thus got your groups as near 

 to nature as you can, you may now have recourse to those 



a VOL. III. p. 28. See above, p. 377. 

 VOL. iv. 2 o 



