MR. A. MURRAY'S MONOGRAPH OF THE FAMILY OF NITIDULARLE. 213 
species. There are thus not very many species to see authentic types of which it would 
now be necessary for the student to go beyond the walls of the British Museum. 
An estimate of the relative strength of the Museum in this family may be made from 
a comparison of the numbers it possesses with those possessed by the Berlin Museum, 
which, before I took the monograph in hand, was far ahead of every other collection, 
and which is now second only to the British Museum. Of the genus Carpophilus there 
have been thirty-five species previously described; the Berlin Museum possesses thirty- 
five species, while the British Museum has sixty-two species, and I describe ninety-three. 
Of the genus Brachypeplus five species have been described, of which four are in the Berlin 
Museum; I describe twenty-eight, of which twenty-three are in the British Museum. 
Of Colastus eighteen species have been described; the Berlin Museum contains nineteen, 
the British Museum twenty-eight, and I describe forty-seven: and other genera in like 
proportion. 
In subdividing this family, I have found it necessary to make the characters of many 
of the genera, and especially of the subgenera, to a greater or less extent artificial. 
If genera really did exist in nature, we ought to be able to find positive and defined 
characters by which to distinguish them. That we do not find any limiting boundaries, 
goes far to prove that there are no such things as genera in nature, and that what we 
call so are neither more nor less than artificial aids to memory and classification. 
In no family which I have studied have I been more struck with this than in the 
JNitidularie. The affinities which we find constantly appearing in unexpected places, and 
the gradual shading off which we see in others, show that the whole group is a perfect 
network of relationship, and that, with a few exceptional breaks, the boundaries of the 
genera, or subsections into which for convenience’ sake we divide them, have no real 
existence. It is no part of my present purpose to discuss the question whether genera 
and species actually do exist or not. It may be that the larger divisions, such as 
our present families, which were first described as genera by Linnzeus and the older 
naturalists, have limits which (subject to the usual exceptions which occur in all systems) 
are sufficiently well defined and constant to allow of their being regarded as boundaries 
laid down by nature and not by man; and there is no doubt that the characters of these 
larger divisions or old genera are much better marked (as, of course, they ought to be) 
than those of the more numerous smaller subdivisions proposed by modern naturalists ; 
but when we come to the smaller sections I have almost invariably found that some 
inosculating passage or other links the whole together, not in a chain or series, but in a 
complete network. 
The purpose of this monograph is not antiquarian but practical. I shall therefore not 
occupy—I must not say waste—time in recapitulating the early notices of the species 
composing it. Practically they are now of little value, and it will sufficiently answer 
every useful purpose to give references to them in the body of the monograph wherever 
they are necessary for the elucidation of the different species. Nor need the more recent 
literature of the subject, although very different in value, occupy us long: it is as scant 
in quantity as it is excellent in quality. 
The species which now compose the family were originally arranged by 5 
e Geer and 
VOL, XXIV. (6 F 
TERT 
