14 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF INSECTS. 



leading and natural divisions have been frittered away, 

 and almost every writer brings out a new arrangement, 

 founded upon nothing better than arbitrary opinion. 

 Now it is quite obvious, that if entomologists had 

 looked beyond those animals more immediately studied, 

 little or nothing of this confusion would have arisen. 

 They would have discovered that the Crustacea by no 

 means constituted a class, for then there would have been 

 six classes among the Annulosa, while the Vertebrata had 

 but five. It appears to us, in short, that the rank of 

 groups can only be determined by analogical comparison, 

 a process which implies a much more general acquaint- 

 ance with zoology than is usually bestowed upon it by 

 those who merely study one of its branches. What 

 faith or dependence could possibly be placed on the 

 opinions of an entomologist, who proceeded to make 

 an arrangement of the annulose division, founded en- 

 tirely upon his knowledge of such only as are possessed 

 of wings ? Taken abstractedly, such an arrangement car- 

 ries upon its face the certainty of error. And yet more 

 than one of those systems for the Annulosa, which have 

 obtained some degree of notoriety, have every appear- 

 ance of being the offspring of such partial and contracted 

 views, v . We hope not to be mistaken in this : we desire 

 to do ample justice to the zeal and ability of all who 

 have gone before us in the path we are now pursuing ; 

 but it is absolutely necessary to inculcate, in the rising 

 generation, sound principles of studying nature, and to 

 combat the idea that because an entomologist is emi- 

 nent in his own walk, he is therefore competent to 

 judge of those laws which regulate the whole of the 

 animal creation, of which he is only acquainted with 

 a small part. 



(12.) Another inference to be drawn from the fore- 

 going table is scarcely of less importance than that we 

 have just mentioned. As the primary groups of the 

 Annulosa are thus found to represent those of the Fer- 

 tebrata, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that they 



