NUMBER OF SPECIES. 19 



zoophytes, and microscopic animalcules, described 

 by naturalists, amount altogether to about twenty- 

 five thousand species. The Count Dejean has cata- 

 logued more than twenty thousand coleopterous in- 

 sects alone. Stephens describes ten thousand British 

 species ; and those now arranged and named in the 

 Royal Cabinet, at Paris, amount of themselves to 

 above twenty-seven thousand,* a number greater 

 than all the other varieties of animal life, taken 

 together, with which we are at present acquainted. 

 If to this were added those which the collection at 

 Paris does not possess, but which other cabinets 

 contain, those named in manuscripts scattered 

 through different countries in Europe, and the new 

 genera which are daily made known to us, both in 

 the east and in the w^est ; the niunber of species 

 already known could not be less than fifty thousand ! 

 But this number, great as it may appear, is trifling 

 compared with the myriads with which we are as 

 yet unacquainted, but whose existence is rendered 

 more than probable by the tribes which the accurate 

 investigation of any district, however limited, is 

 continually unfolding to our view. Kirby and Spence, 

 in their admirable " Introduction to Entomolog5^" 



* This estimate of the number of known species was made some 

 years Ago, when the letters were first written : the numbers have been 

 greatly increased during the last few years. 



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