CHAPTER IX. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



G HARACTERS for the ten families of Petalocera more de- 

 tailed than the preceding may perhaps have been expected 

 •of me; but to keep the middle path between a too copious 

 .and too meagre description of a natural group is perhaps one 

 of the most difficult tasks that can be imposed on a natura- 

 list. If brevity be aimed at, and the family be sketched in 

 few words, objects however unlike its type are necessarily 

 admitted, and confusion is the unavoidable result. If on 

 the other hand the characters become numerous, there is 

 a constant danger of something being excluded from its na- 

 tural situation ; because in proportion always to the num- 

 ber of details in the description is the liability of such to ex- 

 ceptions. In acknowledging however my inability to make 

 the descriptions of the families more precise, I am led to 

 imagine that this inability proceeds from a cause insepa- 

 rable from the nature of the subject, and in a great degree 

 independent of myself. So far then from laying any claim 

 to the merit of precision, I could even wish, in offering the 

 above characters to entomologists, that some expression 

 implying doubt were prefixed to each. In describing species, 

 each of which Nature has manifestly insulated, a failure 

 in precision denotes an inability to seize their characteristic 

 marks ; — it is in short a glaring fault : but where, on the 

 other hand, no. distinct lines of demarcation have been im T 



