AND LOWER EGYPT. 145 



tions of this kind, should, at first sight, and with- 

 out farther examination, have imposed false deno- 

 minations on foreign animals, fiomsome apparent 

 relation, whether in respect of form or mode of 

 living, with known animals, is not a matter of 

 surprise : their manner of viewing objects was su- 

 perficial and vulgar, the results had the same de- 

 fects. But there is good reason to be surprised, that 

 naturalists by profession, that Hasselquitz, for ex- 

 ample, the pupil of an illustrious master, should 

 have fallen into the same errors. Me is so much 

 the less excusable, that he did not fix on the de- 

 nomination to be appropriated, till after a long and 

 even minute examination. But he had, like his 

 master Linnaeus, the mania of referring to the same 

 genus, beings which nature had separated. This 

 union of objects, frequently very remote from each 

 other in the true system of nature, was founded 

 merely on certain approximations in the exterior 

 forms : approximations isolated, vague, taken by 

 chance, and so destitute of foundation, that they 

 might be given up, and were in fact given up, to 

 assume others equally precarious, by means of 

 which, the same animal changed place or genus, 

 at the pleasure of the nomenclator *. 



After having examined each form in particular, 

 to catch and to compare their combination; above 



* See the proof of this in the nomenclature introduced in the 

 first note, bottom of the preceding page. 



vol. i. l all 



