THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 126.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1859. ' [Price Id. 
PRACTICABILITY. 
“But I want now to propose that 
which meets the existing requirements 
of public opinion, taking into consider- 
ation the timidity that exists on the 
one hand, and the earnestness and 
ardour which prevail on the other. 
Unless you do that, your Bill will not 
be practical. The most ardent cannot 
carry all they wish. We must have 
something which meets as much of 
public opinion as will enable it to be 
carried.” 
Thus spoke John Bright at Brad- 
ford on the 18th of January. 
The essence of the above sentences 
is that something less than we desire 
is propounded, because something less 
may be achieved, whilst the whole we 
are anxious to see carried out, cannot 
in fact be accomplished. 
In short we ask for part of what we 
want, because we feel confident that if 
we asked for the whole we should not 
get it. 
The readers of the ‘ Accentuated List 
of British Lepidoptera,’ which the ad- 
vertisements inform us follows the ar- 
rangement of Mr. Doubleday’s forth- 
coming Catalogue, must have been 
surprised, on first turning over its pages, 
to find the new location assigned to 
the Geometrae, the interposition of the 
whole group between the Bombyces 
and the Notodontse striking one di- 
rectly as with a cold shudder. What, 
the Kentish Glory separated from the 
Puss by all the Pugs! The arrange- 
ment may commend itself to the phi- 
losopher, but will it answer in prac- 
tice ? 
It is now some time back since we 
remarked on the juxtaposition of the 
» 
Pyralidae and Noctuae, that, if their 
aflSnities justified such a step, one 
might as well place the Geometrae 
next to the Bombyces, but even in 
our most racy moments we never pro- 
posed that, sandwich-like, they should 
be placed in the midst of the Bom- 
byces. 
Besides what may be the next step ? 
This movement cannot be a final one ; 
the division of the Bombyces must so 
affect the cohesion of the separate parts 
that possibly some further splittings up 
may ensue, and each of the other groups 
will be clamouring for a share of the 
about-to-be-dislributed Bombyces, like 
Austria, Prussia and Russia debating 
over the fairest division of Poland. 
Fancy a Coleopterist splitting up 
the Carabidse, and inserting the whole 
of the Brachelytra between them, and 
yet there might be sound philosophy 
z 
