X I' KEF ACE. 



applicable to a few genera only, which are considered 

 as its type, and does not embrace other genera which 

 are regarded as belonging to it, but beginning to as- 

 sume the characters of some of the other neighbour- 

 ing groups. There is here the use of a method, 

 where there is no precision, and a boasting that the 

 plan of Nature is followed, when that plan is con- 

 fessedly incomprehensible. Indeed, it often hap- 

 pens, that the admired natural method of one zoo- 

 logist differs from the censured artificial method of 

 another, merely in the circumstance that different 

 systems of organs have been made choice of as the 

 basis of the respective classifications. Unless zoo- 

 logists, in the formation of their primary groups, 

 endeavour to determine those characters which all 

 the members possess in common, admitting only such 

 marks into the definition, and practise the same me- 

 thod with all the subordinate divisions, the progress 

 of the science will be unsteady, the student will be 

 startled at its contradictions, and the revolutions in 

 nomenclature become as frequent as the cultivators 

 of the science are numerous. 



The ridicule too often thrown out against 

 some of the departments of Zoology, by persons who 

 pretend to considerable intellectual acquirements, 



