concise definition, they answer the ends proposed ; namely, clearness
of arrangement, brevity of description, and facility in finding species.
But the human mind is ever prone to extremes, and the passion for
dividing and subdividing, and giving names, may become as great an
evil as that which led the followers of Linnæus to deprecate all division,
and to view with abhorrence the slightest attempt to break up
the old groups. Now the point at which these artificial genera and
sub-genera should stop is, where they can be no longer defined with
reference to the end proposed ; that is, when their peculiarities are
so slight that they cannot be pointed out in a clear and comprehensive
manner.- When, to make them intelligible, it becomes necessary to
draw up long and perplexing characters, the very object of their
makers is defeated. No clearness is gained, no facilities of research
afforded ; the student is bewildered, and the experienced naturalist
consumes more time in reading over and comparing these generic
chapters, than would enable him to glance his eye over twenty good
specific characters. The tedious and intolerable length of such definitions,
it must be confessed, is inevitable ; for their authors, not being
acquainted with the principle of variation in their group, are obliged
to specify all its characters ; whereas, if the group was a natural one,
and its true distinctions had been studied, its essential characters, as
we shall repeatedly exemplify, might be expressed in two or three
lines. Fortunately, the only group in Ornithology which has apparently
suffered from this evil is that of the Falconidoe. In Entomology,
however, its pernicious consequences are nowhere so conspicuous
as in the recent works upon British Insects : where the generic
characters, for the most part, are so complicated and prolix as to
occupy half a page.
To show that this passion for genus making among us has reached
a point bordering upon the ridiculous, I need only state a fact, asserted
by one who seems not to be conscious of following in the same track,
“ that the Musca putris of Linné has actually been converted into
three species, belonging to two genera*.”
* Stevens, Catalogue of British Insects, Pref., p. xiii.
If anything is calculated to invest Natural History with a repulsive
aspect, and to hide all the enticing charms of the science, it is assuredly
this mode of encumbering it With learned names and prolix definitions.
The only merits of artificial systems are in pointing'out
differences, and in abridging labour ; when they do this, they are not
only useful, but, in our present state of knowledge, absolutely essential.
To combine them, however, with the natural system, is as hopeless
as it is impossible. Mr. Macleay, who in this department is a host,
has justly said, “ It is the evil of half-artificial systems, that while
they are at utter variance with natural affinities, they do not even
answer the humble purposes of a catalogue
But no such latitude of making groups is allowed to the follower
of the natural system. His decisions are regulated by certain rules,
to which, as he finds them capable of definition, he is compelled to
adhere. If he understands his genus, he knows that that genus,
theoretically speaking, contains certain types of form, or sub-genera,
indicated by two or three nice but discriminating characters; and to
these sub-genera he either gives patronymic names, as in the case of
Scarabeeus (Hone Ent., p. 497), or he designates them by numbers,
as in PhantBUs (lb., p. 124). If he adopts the former plan, he must,
from necessity, considerably augment the nomenclature of the science;
but if, on the other hand, he chooses the latter, he must, to be consistent,
reject all sub-generic names throughout Zoology. Now it so
happens that many of these sub-genera have been named long ago,
and are so strikingly marked that zoologists have mistaken them for
genera : hence, if the plan of naming them was suddenly relinquished,
more confusion than perspicuity would ensue. We must, therefore, at
least for the present, follow the first plan, since to retain a patronymic
name to one of the types in a generic group, and withhold it from
another, would introduce an inconsistency and confusion in nomenclature
perfectly intolerable.
In designating the higher groups, I have not considered it expedient
to invent names for the purpose of showing the equivalent value of
* Annulosa Javanica, p. 36.
h 2