CHAPTER V. 



REMARKS ON THE LINNiEAN GENERA LUCANUS 

 . , AND HISTER. 



1 HERE are some truths curious and even interesting, 

 which are nevertheless overlooked or despised on the sole 

 account of their having been singly and without comment 

 introduced to our notice. The idea of making use of them 

 as premises from which some inference may be drawn is 

 thus often paralysed; and they accordingly accumulate, 

 until the science which they were intended to illustrate 

 becomes neglected as a barren mass of insulated facts. 

 Such would be the fate of natural history in an especial 

 manner, were we to adopt the vulgar opinion, that it is 

 a science of observation alone. But luckily we know from 

 experience the very reverse to be the case, and that any 

 branch of knowledge, where the true value of a remark 

 can never be perceived until it be connected with others 

 so as to form a regular whole, must therefore depend as 

 much on the employment of our reasoning faculties as on 

 that of the eyes. De Geer, in describing the parts of the 

 mouth in Geotrupes stercorarius, Lat., made known an 

 anatomical structure quite as complicated, or even more 

 so than the analogous parts in vertebrated animals, al- 

 though formed on a totally distinct plan : yet at the time 

 he only added one solitary unconnected fact to the stock 



