31 



succeeded in obtaining llie larva of Meloe from the egg, certainly 

 tended to corroborate De Geer. But I am rather wandering from 

 ray subject, and, therefore, will consider these little creatures also, 

 wandering like comets in eccentric courses over the whole system, 

 now approaching Staphylinus, and anon Ichneumon, and, as they 

 draw near, borrowing a character from each : they may, on the 

 other hand, constitute disconnected links of some other mighty 

 chain, the intervening parts of which are for a time hidden from 

 the sight of man, and perhaps hereafter may be revealed ; perhaps, 

 again, they may occupy some of the chasms I have been com- 

 pelled to leave vacant : but I deprecate, I detest the idea, of 

 forcing any creature into a situation which nature has not evi- 

 dently pointed out as its appropriate one, for the ignoble purpose 

 of giving plausibility and imperfect perfection to a scheme. 



ON THE SUB-CLASSES, &c. OF LEPIDOPTERA. 



It may be thought a strange propensity to grapple with diffi- 

 culties, that leads me to select Lepidoptera as a class, by which 

 to exemplify, in detail, the septenary and circular arrangement. 

 There is no class so puzzling to systematists, or for which science 

 has done so little — no class is at present so badly arranged, and 

 in none are barbarous combinations so much in vogue. Linnaeus 

 founded divisions at the outset, on characters, " loose, vague, and 

 insufficient :" * modern genera have a little improved minor de- 

 tails, and but little, for their places appear to have been assigned 

 them by lot, and without the slightest regard to similarity or 

 approach : in a word, the arrangement of Lepidoptera appears to 

 have been conducted by collectors, who aimed rather at a pretty 

 picture than a related series ; and all our writers have rushed 

 headlong by the same path, without staying an instant to con- 

 sider whether they were right or wrong, like boys playing at 

 follow-the-leader,-]- each occasionally leaping some wider gap, or 

 descending some more dangerous precipice than his predecessor, 

 as though for the very love of frolic and bravado. One, a 

 talented writer, an assiduous collector, a most accurate observer, 



* Particularly in the sections of Papilio. f Linnaeus. 



