PREFACE. XI 



tribes ; at all events some of the Quadrumana (that 

 are entirely vegetable feeders) will be placed below 

 the lions and tigers. Such an arrangement is not 

 natural. As to the arguments in favour of the 

 precedence of Cicindelidse from symmetry of struc- 

 ture and agility, if any weight could be attached 

 to them, we should have the antelope and light 

 gazelle taking precedence of all the vertebrata. 

 Having thus briefly stated my objections, it will 

 probably be asked what new system I have to pro- 

 pose.* Without attempting a new one, I recom- 



* In corroboration of the above opinion, I subjoin an extract 

 from a letter received from the author of the Paper on Sphinx Li- 

 gustri. Vid. Philosophical Transactions. 



l< It has long struck me that the principle on which modern Ento- 

 mologists have founded their arrangements are quite assumed and 

 arbitrary, and by no means natural or in accordance with those great 

 principles upon which comparative anatomists have attempted to 

 arrange the vertebrated classes of creation. In all the arrangements 

 of Insects there have appeared to me some true and some false 

 principles intermixed, and no one great principle has been entirely 

 followed out when commenced with, but has been interfered with by 

 the introduction of other principles of secondary or minor importance. 

 This appears to have arisen from the generality of Entomologists 

 being little acquainted with the internal structure of Insects and other 

 Invertebrata, and in consequence they have taken nearly all the cha- 

 racters employed in their arrangements from the exterior of the 

 animals; indeed, in almost all instances, external form has been 

 regarded in the arrangement, and no uniform physiological principle 

 or reference to internal anatomy has been followed. The nervous 

 system indeed is almost entirely disregarded." — Newport in litteris. 



