PREFACE. llX 



If anything is calculated to invest Natural History with a repulsive 

 aspect, and to hide all the enticing charms of the science, it is assur- 

 edly this mode of encumbering it with learned names and prolix defi- 

 nitions. The only merits of artificial systems are in pointing out 

 differences, and in abridging labour ; when they do this, they are not 

 only useful, but, in our present state of knowledge, absolutely essential. 

 To combine them, however, with the natural system, is as hopeless 

 as it is impossible. Mr. Macleay, who in this department is a host, 

 has justly said, " It is the evil of half- artificial systems, that while 

 they are at utter variance with natural affinities, they do not even 

 answer the humble purposes of a catalogue*." 



But no such latitude of making groups is allowed to the follower 

 of the natural system. His decisions are regulated by certain rule", 

 to which, as he finds them capable of definition, he is compelled to 

 adhere. If he understands his genus, he knows that that genus, 

 theoretically speaking, contains certain types of form, or sub-genera, 

 indicated by two or three nice but discriminating characters ; and to 

 these sub-genera he either gives patronymic names, as in the case of 

 Scarabaus (Horn Ent., p. 497), or he designates them by numbers, 

 as in Phanceus (lb., p. 124). If he adopts the former plan, he must, 

 from necessity, considerably augment the nomenclature of the science; 

 but if, on the other hand, he chooses the latter, he must, to be con- 

 sistent, reject all sub-generic names throughout Zoology. N"ow it so 

 happens that many of these sub-genera have been named long ago, 

 and are so strikingly marked that zoologists have mistaken them for 

 genera : hence, if the plan of naming them was suddenly relinquished, 

 more confusion than perspicuity would ensue. We must, therefore, at 

 least for the present, follow the first plan, since to retain a patronymic 

 name to one of the types in a generic group, and withhold it from 

 another, would introduce an inconsistency and confusion in nomen- 

 clature perfectly intolerable. 



In designating the higher groups, I have not considered it expedient 

 to invent names for the purpose of showing the equivalent value of 



* Annulosa Javanica, p. 36. 



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