9*2 SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
female glowworm, we shall feel inclined rather to admire 
the judgment displayed in associating each of these with 
its fellows, than to criticise the very pardonable error of 
separating these insects from their congeners in Hymenop- 
tera and Coleoptera. It is really remarkable that although 
considerably more than two thousand years have elapsed 
since this system was first promulged, so little has been 
done towards improving it. The systematist of the pre¬ 
sent day has no choice but to go back two thousand 
years for the primary division or classification of insects, 
and I may add that nothing but a desire to make myself 
clearly intelligible prevents my employing the nomencla¬ 
ture as well as the divisions proposed by Aristotle. 
The metamorphotic system of Swammerdam, Ray, and 
Willughby, is a great and well-marked era in the pro¬ 
gress of the science : the merit of first introducing meta¬ 
morphosis as a basis for the formation of natural divisions 
is due to Swammerdam, but our countrymen, Willughby 
and Ray, fully adopted his views, and improved on some 
of his divisions. I must not, however, be understood as 
assigning a very high share of praise to our English advo¬ 
cates of the metamorphotic system : regarding Ray as the 
most brilliant naturalist between Aristotle and Cuvier, I 
rather shrink from connecting his name with a system which 
he had no merit in portraying. 
In France, Lamarck proposed a metamorphotic system 
still more complete than Swammerdam’s : in this he calls 
the pupa in Lepidoptera and Diptera by the name of chry¬ 
salis ; in Hymenoptera and Coleoptera by the name of 
munia; and in Orthoptera and Hemiptera by that of nym¬ 
ph a; thus emphatically expressing his view of their com¬ 
plete distinctness. 
