of the Dichotomous System. 207 



Dr. Fleming gives just and due praise to the great natural- 

 ists of England, Ray, Willoughby, and Lister, and most pro- 

 perly exalts them above Linnaeus ; but it is evident, from the 

 mode in which he characterizes their works in contradi- 

 stinction to those of Linnaeus, that he never read them, and 

 consequently that he is, in celebrating them, only a plagiarist 

 from some person who has called his attention to their merits. 

 Let him say who this person is. 



If any one thing be more clearly prescribed in Natural 

 History than another, it is perhaps a species. Linnaeus has 

 defined species thus : " Species tot sunt quot diversas formas 

 ab initio produxit infinitum Ens; quae formae, secundum gene- 

 rationis inditas leges, produxere plures, at sibi semper similes." 

 Our establisher of fixed principles, however, scorns this defi- 

 nition, and favours us with the following new one : " When 

 the similarity between objects is complete, the individuals, how- 

 ever numerous, are regarded by the naturalist as constituting a 

 species." This is certainly a shorter definition than the former ; 

 and to say nothing of the difference of the sexes, as the simi- 

 larity between two objects is never complete, it has the advan- 

 tage of making as many species as there are individual beings. 



His mode of distinguishing the sexes is equally accurate. 

 "In the more perfect animals we shall find that one individual 

 of the species will be drawn by an immaterial tie" — "to unite 

 with another individual in the propagation of its kind. If this 

 selection has taken place in a state of freedom, we may with 

 certainty infer that the two individuals are male and female." 

 Provided this attraction be the certain mode of discovering 

 the sexes, the Doctor may perhaps, on his next spring visit to 

 the ditch that surrounds his glebe, discover a carp or tench 

 to be the female of a frog. As the fact to which I allude is 

 not rare, to be convinced of the affinity, he will, without much 

 difficulty, have the evidence of observation. Insects, I sup- 

 pose, he considers as less perfect animals, and so falling out 

 of the scope of his definition; else would singular males and 

 females be discovered. 



But there is no end to the absurdities of this article, which 

 so singularly ornaments the Quarterly Review. I might run 

 on and investigate his "caterpillar's suckers," his "albuminous 

 skeletons," and his "bisulcated pigs," &c. &c; but I will not, 

 and only pray that the dust I have raised about his ears may 

 lie light on these as well as all his other vagaries. 



Believe me ever, my dear Vigors, most truly yours, 



Havana, March 1, 1830. W. S. MacLeay. 



Notes 



