52 



ON THE CETONIID^ OF SOUTH AFRICA. 



groupe in which species combine will be found, provided all the species are known, to return 

 into itself, so as to form, as it were, a circle ; and if we could suppose no species to be lost or to 

 remain undiscovered, we should further find five of these lowest groupes to form another circle, and 

 five of these last circular groupes to form another, and so on until we arrived at that grand 

 circular groupe which is called the Animal Kingdom. But setting aside this theoretical use of 

 the foregoing analysis, the practical entomologist will soon discover that in no other way have 

 we ever had the singularly complicated relations, that exist between the different species of the 

 natural family of Cetoniidce, so well represented. It must not be supposed, however, that I 

 offer this essay as perfect and complete, or that I absurdly pretend, as some have most unjustly 

 laid to my charge, to have positively arrived at the Natural System. I merely publish this 

 paper on Cetoniidce, as another, and perhaps closer approximation to that Divine plan, which, 

 every hour I have devoted to nature, whether in tropical forests or in the museums of Europe, has 

 shewn to be the branch of natural history most worthy of being studied by rational beings. 

 But the truth is, that this Divine plan is not one particular branch of natural history, but the 

 study of it necessarily includes the knowledge of every branch. It is the whole, of which each 

 branch of natural history is but a part, and which I shall ever regard with gratitude, as having 

 been the source of many moments of the purest pleasure while my residence was in an 

 unhealthy climate. 



