PRINCIPLES OP SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT. 
125 
suit any extension of the genus, and in fact exacts it at 
the hands of all who describe new species. This many 
naturalists undertake without any apparent conscious¬ 
ness of the scientific responsibilities that attach to it, 
and whence results the confusion so much to he deplored, 
of the synonymy that prevails, constituting, as it does, 
such a Daedalian labyrinth. The describer of a new 
species is bound to cast around, and endeavour to know 
all that has been previously done upon the subject of 
the genus. He has to revise all the specific characters 
within the genus, and mould them to those he introduces, 
and he must insert these closest to their evident affini¬ 
ties. Thus, therefore, the describer’s labour is not light, if 
to be of any value. The specific character, although thus 
varying, becomes a permanent utility, and only so fulfils 
its object,—that of rapidly showing, at a glance, the 
known species of a genus, and thereby permitting the 
speedy determination of the identity or distinctness 
of a compared object. If doubt should exist from this 
brevity, the specific description is at hand to solve it, by 
the amplitude and completeness of its details. Of course 
this mode of treatment is only suitable to monographs, 
or portions of the science discussed separately, and not 
to a general or universal survey. 
The amount of toil thus saved to the describing na¬ 
turalist, and to those who wish to name their specimen, 
the experienced only can estimate. This brevity of spe¬ 
cific character is one of Linnseus’s terse and valuable 
axioms, who limits its length to twelve words. The best 
examples, I think, that I can adduce in entomology, of 
valuable and exemplary specific descriptions, is Gyllen- 
haks f Insecta Suecica/ which contains exclusively a de¬ 
scription of Swedish Coleoptera; Gravenhorst’s large 
