( 63 ) 



II. On the Structure of the Tarsus in the Tetramerous and Tri- 

 merous Cokoptera of the French Entomologists. Bij JV. S. Mac- 

 Leay, Esq. A.M. F.L.S. Communicated bi/ the Zoological Club 

 of the Linnean Society. 



Read February 1, 1825. 



Each succeeding day proves more and more the importance to 

 Natural History of the utmost particularity of detail. This science 

 is one in Avhich correct general views can only be constructed 

 on a minuteness of scrutiny which may be tiresome, nay, to some 

 minds, even disgusting, but can never be unprofitable. The 

 collector who consults books merely that he may be enabled to 

 attach a label to some object in his museum, is as much interested 

 in our observations being minute, as the naturalist whose study it 

 is to ascertain the affinities and analogies which connect together 

 all organized beings. It is only, indeed, upon minute observa- 

 tion that accurate descriptions can ever be founded ; and it is 

 therefore impossible for such persons as will not deign to de- 

 scend into details to attain even mediocrity as naturalists. The 

 entomologist then may say, on behalf of the minute objects which 

 he studies and the minuteness with which he describes them, that 

 unless a similar minuteness of observation be carried into the 

 study of Mammalia and Birds, even in these important classes of 

 the creation nothing that is certain as to affinities, nothing that 

 is definite in nomenclature, can ever be attained. Yet even in 

 Entomology, a science of which strict scrutiny is as it were the 



charac- 



