170 INTRODUCTORY. 



Satisfied of this truth, I attempted to take a general 

 view of insects, disregarding all anomalous genera, or even 

 such families as did not seem very clearly defined. The 

 groups thus formed I then endeavoured to connect on 

 some principle of natural affinity, paying always the great- 

 est attention to physiology, and finally leaving the first in- 

 accurate outline to be corrected by future observations. 

 This plan though evidently imperfect in many respects, as 

 was indeed to have been expected in a first rough sketch, 

 nevertheless produced, in my opinion, an arrangement so 

 far more natural than the systems ordinarily adopted, 

 that instead of continuing to trace the extreme fibres to the 

 root of the tree, I ventured to begin at the root, in order to 

 meet the ramifications which had already been traced. 



An unity of plan in the animal part of the creation be- 

 came thus more remarkable ; for though I could find many 

 chasms in the chain, no where, after an accurate examina- 

 tion, was it certain that any anomalous interruptions oc- 

 curred. Nay, the singularities of the animated part of the 

 creation which had hitherto appeared so extraordinary to 

 naturalists, as serving only to defy all arrangement, were 

 here usually the very links required in order to arrive at 

 connexion. So that nature appeared to me to have branched 

 out in the animal kingdom, if at least it was allowable to 

 judge of the whole from one ramification, in a most beau- 

 tiful and regular though intricate manner, that might be . 

 compared to those zoophytes which ramify in every direc- 

 tion, but of which the extreme fibres form by their con- 

 nexion the most delicate circular reticulations. 



These introductory observations have been deemed 

 useful, m the first place in order to give the reader a ge- 

 neral idea of the object of the former Essay, which so few 



