THE EHTOIVIOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 189.] SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1860 [Price Id. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
“Suppose,” writes Agassiz, “that the 
inuumerable articulated animals, which 
are counted by tens of thousands, nay, 
perhaps by hundreds of thousands, had 
never made their appearance npon the 
surface of our globe, with one single 
exception ; suppose, for instance, that 
our lobster (Homarus Americanus) were 
the only representative of that extra- 
ordinarily diversified type — how should 
we introduce that species of animal into 
our systems.^” 
Let the reader endeavour to realize 
to himself, if he can, the conception 
of a world where butterflies and moths, 
bees, bugs and beetles should have no 
existence ; let there be no centipedes, 
no woodlice, no shrimps ; and yet, in 
this world, clothed with vegetation, and 
populated with vertebrate animals, just 
like our own, — and not devoid of 
oysters, snails and other slimy things, 
— let him imagine a lobster ! 
To what class of the animals in 
that world is it to be referred ? That 
is the question propounded by Agassiz, 
— a question of vital importance to 
every entomologist, for every day we 
may have to deal with similar pro- 
blems in discussing the relationships 
of novelties. 
“ How should we introduce that 
species of animal into our systems? 
Simply as a genus with one species, by 
the side of all the other classes, with 
their orders, families, &c., or as a family 
containing only one genus with one spe- 
cies, or as a class with one order and one 
genus, or as a class with one family and 
one genus? And should we acknow- 
ledge, by the side of Vertebrata, Mol- 
lusca and Radiata, another type, Articu- 
lata, on account of the existence of that 
one lobster, or would it be natural to 
call it by a single name, simply as a 
species, in contradistinction to all other 
animals?” 
Whether Nemeobius Lucina was re- 
lated to the ArgrjnnidcB or to the Ly- 
cceriidcB was once a nice problem for 
the student of British butterflies — and 
it was a problem almost identical with 
that propounded by Agassiz. We now 
know that it is the sole representative 
in Europe of a family extensive enough 
elsewhere; bnt annihilate every other 
species of Erycinidce , — destroy them 
from the face of the globe, — and what 
are you then to do with Nemeobius 
Lucina P Would it thereby become 
any the more closely related to Melilwa 
It 
