INTRODUCTION. 3 



tions of the antennas even to this day are unknown 3 ; 

 and possibly may continue so, as there is no reason why 

 an animal, whose general construction is so different from 

 our own, should not possess sensations with which we must 

 for ever remain unacquainted. The same may in some 

 measure be said of the Elytra, Wings, Sternum, Scutel- 

 lum and Tarsi, organs which are either not to be found, 

 or if found, are by no means analogously constructed 

 in the Vertebrata, the only animals to which with propriety 

 we can refer our own sensations. Nevertheless, all these 

 parts of an insect have been made use of in' their turn for 

 purposes of general arrangement; and it is undoubtedly true, 

 that no divisions, or rather no affinities*, can be more na- 

 tural than such as are often pointed out by some of these 

 organs ; as for instance, the antenna?. Of the truth of this 

 remark it will be seen that the Lamellicorn Insects af- 

 ford a very striking example. But an implicit confidence 

 for purposes of classification in any solitary anatomical 

 part, or even in the organs of manducation themselves, 

 must be objected to. We ought to proceed with care, 

 assuming no principle of arrangement as fixed, and no- 

 thing as fixed in arrangement itself, except so far as we may 



a It is probably on some account like this that Fabricius passes such 

 a sweeping condemnation on the use of the antennae in the formation of 

 genera: " Antenna? ad characteres generum vix usurpandav*' Phil. Ent. 

 p. 1 30.—" Antennx ad generum characteres minus valent quam plurimi 

 estimant." Ibid. p. 94. 



b The French naturalists make use of the expression coupes naturelles 

 as we are accustomed to speak of sections and natural genera. But how- 

 ever correct all this may be in practice, it has certainly given rise to many 

 erroneous ideas ; as it is difficult to conceive why genera should have been 

 imagined to exist in nature, until we had previously familiarized our- 

 selves with the term natural divisions. As matters now stand, in endeavour- 

 ing to discover divisions instead of affinities, we make use of an artificial 

 method instead of a natural one to arrive at — Nature, 



B2 



