NATURAL SYSTEMS. — MACLEAY’S. 219 
sal, or he would not have abandoned this principle of 
the natural system in the two most important diagrams 
of his essay ; being those, in fact, by which he intended 
to show the natural distribution of the Annulosa, and 
the sum and substance of his entire theory on this class 
of animals. 
(269.) A few other systems, claiming to be natural, 
may be briefly glanced at, as having been intimated or 
projected by subsequent writers, without, however, ex- 
hibiting any attempt at demonstration, much less of 
establishing any new principle of natural arrangement. 
The laborious author of the “ Systematic Catalogue of 
British Insects,”’—adopting a favourite notion of an emi- 
nent entomologist whose writings we have frequently 
quoted, — thinks that seven is the definite number em- 
ployed by nature in the construction of her groups, and 
therefore divides all insects into seven orders ; profess- 
ing at the same time to be “ convinced that natural 
objects cannot be arranged agreeably to their affinities, 
otherwise than by a series of circles, returning, as Mr. 
MacLeay expresses it, into themselves.” Admitting this 
as an undoubted truth, our author, nevertheless, continues 
** sceptical as to the quinary arrangement being uni- 
versal throughout nature.” In pursuance of his be- 
lief in the circular system, he has given a table 
of the supposed affinities of the order Coleoptera, 
and three others of different groups of the Lepidop- 
tera. As no details, however, are entered into, the 
reader is left to make out these affinities as he best 
can, and the tables themselves (possibly by the mode 
in which they are printed) appear to us not well cal- 
culated to elucidate the notions of the author. A 
much more able attempt to revive this system has 
been recently made by the ingenious author of Sphina 
Vespiformis, wherein he advocates the circular theor 
of Mr. MacLeay, but maintains that the number of divi- 
sions throughout nature are seven. These divisions he 
arranges, so that one, the assumed pre-eminent type, 
occupies the centre of a diagram ; the other six being 
