1889.1 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



Brachelytra through the Lebiadae, it leads off towards the Hydra- 

 dephaga by affinities in Bembidium and Haliplus, and so M'Leay con- 

 ceived the whole organism of nature as arranged in circles of five 

 members, each asculant on one another. Out of this grew the theory 

 of analogues, and here the pedant seems more obvious than the 

 philosopher, although M'Leay need not be held responsible for the 

 lengths to which his disciple Swainson carried this idea, he certainly 

 originated it. In Swainson's hands it became almost absurd and 

 exceedingly complicated, every part of creation is analogous to some 

 other part, the series are endless, coleoptera becomes an analogue of 

 rodentia among mammalia, and of the tortoises among reptilia ; and 

 more, every division and sub-division of coleoptera became analogous 

 to similar divisions among every other order, and this not as the 

 result of some fortuitous arrangement, but as inevitable as the for- 

 mation of the atoms that build up a crystal. Of course this strange 

 theory breaks down because all the circles have to be arranged in 

 quinnary terms, and this iron-bound numerical conformity is totally at 

 variance with every natural law. But when M'Leay descends from 

 these flights of imagination he does good lasting work. To Leach 

 and M'Leay, principally M'Leay, are due nearly all our modern 

 families, such as Carabida, for the other minor divisions of sub- 

 families, and the like, Stephens and Westwood are mainly res- 

 ponsible. 



Stephen's magnificent work was published in 1828, and he follows 

 Clairville's general division of insects by oral organs. His treatment 

 of coleoptera is to some extent independent, dividing it as he does 

 into seven sections, which are not at all in conformity with those 

 known before, or any that have been accepted since. The second of 

 these sections he calls Rhypophaga, which includes Palpicomia^ and part 

 of Clavicomia. Then there are three or four sections which he does 

 not distinguish by any special name, and last of all come Brachelytw, 

 Stephens evidently seeing in that group an approach to the next 

 order of Deymaptera or Euplexoptera. 



But in the work of Professor Westwood we reach the climax of 

 system. Westwood published his classification in 1839, eleven years 

 after the work of Stephens. We speak of this as the climax of classi- 

 fication because this author contrived to embody in his own some 

 part of nearly all the systems that preceded him. He adopted 

 M'Leay's refutation of the diminishing tarsal plan, but re-created the 

 same groups under the modified names of Pseudotetramera and Pseudo* 

 trimera. He accepted M'Leay's larval nomenclature for two or three 



