128

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(27) Extracts from the Horae entomolgicae by W. S. Macleay 1819

p. 1. quotes from Kirby (Monog. Apoum Angliae p. 39 vol I) that in animal veg. kingdom "reproduction of the species compose the essence of its being" ⸮ whether not to perfect the species?

'this remark supported by observations that life decays when reproductive organs fail. — is it not vice versâ??

p. 37 genera osculentia different from annectentia because they partake of characters of general or familiar in true circles. But yet they must form parts of the greater circle & therefore the distinction does not appear to me just.—

[in faint, almost illegible pencil:] Copy this note [illeg] –

p 37 "These genera osculuntia,—such as Sinodendron, Lethrus, Platycerus, and as I suspect, also Asalus, have in preference to all others a special right to be termed natural, and appear in general to possess a remarkable character, which is the fewness of species of which they are composed.*(a)"

p. 42 Latreilles Memoire in Annales du Museum on geograph of insects. quoted as good

p. 55 & 56 'These principles were, as I have already stated, that any other difference that may exist between animals than those of sex and species, is not absolute, but must be considered as arising solely from the imperfection of our own knowledge of Nature's productions; and that genera consequently become artificial, and only useful as serving to subdivide our more general ideas."

128v

*(a) It ought to be observed that this peculiarity is not so remarkable in the genera which connect the two circles of Petalocera with each other, and therefore it may perhaps belong solely to those singular insects which serve
to connect the more discordant groups.

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p. 64. insists upon those character only being used which have direct influence on habit of life.—

How is such a view applicable to birds like ground woodpeckers?

p 73 Cetonia Morio Fab & probably many others of the darker coloured species are often to be found regaling themselves on the sap: which flows from the wounds of trees, while C. aurata with its more brillian companions is only to be found on flowers.

p. 87 copy "Families are then evidently artificial; that is, they are in the present state of the science considered natural only so far as they may be secluded from the rest by chasms which we are by no means to suppose to have been left by Nature, but rather to be the necessary result of our imperfect knowledge of species."

—(yet the occurrence of few species in osculant groups
⸮ point out some law of disctontinuity for if they were merely osculant & defined from our ignorance, why few species

p. 88 it would appear then in know insect which an indifferently be ranged with the Geotrupidae or Scarabaidae

p. 88 "In the families which are considered most natural, the difficult of making what are termed good or natural genera is the greatest."

p. 89 Linneaus says "classis et ordo est sapientiae, genus et species Naturae opus" how wise! Genus meaning chasm. Macleay doubts this, says though there are generic characters yet they blend away into others.—

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p. 90 . 91 "The foregoing families I do not offer therefore as groups precise and well defined; nay, such I conceive it impossible to make: but if they can be imagined as each containing a peculiar type of formation, to which all in it are in some degree assimilated, though subject to various shades of difference that at length lead them into a neighbouring family, this idea will perhaps be found more consonant to what is observed in nature than any other which can be
proposed."

(Will these types of structures [illeg] parent species? If so parent birs must have been a very perfect bird.— it must be borne in mind that an aberrant bird may be older.— apterix may have been parent, as well as an offshoot — cannot be told except [illeg] by circumstances.—

p. 161. insists upon importance of physiology in classification, or the anatomy with reference to their habits & manner of living.— mere forms of parts, without use will lead to artificial argument.—

p 170 "So that nature appeared to me to have branched out in the animal kingdom, if at least it was allowable to judge of the whole from one ramification, in a most beautiful and regular though intricate manner, that might be compared to those zoophytes which ramify in every direction, but of which the extreme fibres form by their connexion the most delicate circular reticulations."

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p. 183 argues through study of generation of lower animals will show error of consdiering "the life of each organized body as a distinct immaterial being, superadded to its material structure" — buds.— enjoys vegetative life yet no independent existence.—

p. 184 "Besides, if life be supposed to be superadded to a body at some particular time, it follows that previous to that period the body must have been a mass of inert matter. Now though this might have been the case when the species was first created, every observation at present shows that the ovum has a vegetative existence from its very first formation in the ovarium, and fully possesses that faculty which we have termed life. In observing one of the least perfect of animals, such as a polype, we find life propagated solely by cuttings or spontaneous fission.

There is nothing that resembles a new life; we merely witness a division of that which already existed, and conclude that there is every probability of all the animals of the particular species so multiplied, being, like the grafts of an apple tree, merely the continuation of one individual. Even in the most perfect animals the ovum is separated from the parent stock by spontaneous fission, and though incapable of generating immediately other ova, is in other respects a mass of cellular tissue, organized in a degree quite as perfect as are the Infusoria.

The above remarks apply with equal truth to vegetables; and it may be said that there is a life in all organized beings, which is merely a continuation of that originally imparted to each of the species. It is the life of the unimpregnated ovum and seed, and the only sort of life which the lowest tribes of plants and animals can possess. It is the common property of the species, which for a time is deposited with every individual."

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p 195 "We observe also on comparing different sorts of nervous systems, that the contraction and irritability of the separated fibre is greater in those animals whose medullary substance is less concentrated; which in some degree proves that the irritability of the muscular fibre depends on the proportion of nerve remaining in it after separation from the rest of the body."

p 196 doubts Lamarcks distinction between that sensitive plant not irritable.

p. 265. quotes Cuvier as saying class of birds separated from all animals to the greatest interval & species most like each other

// p 283. few of the external organis in the Vertebrata so liable to variation in form & number as those of locomotion.— reptiles

p. 289 quotes G. St. Hilaire. Philosophie Anatomique as worth examing to know place of man.

p. 319 "On the examination of this sketch, we are at first struck with the analogy which opposite points of the same circle bear to one another,—an analogy sometimes so strong that it has been mistaken for a relation of affinity; and indeed I am still unable to state whether this be not the fact, and that the opposite points of the curve, if I may so express myself, do not meet each other. […] So the discovery of it served to prevent my falling into several mistakes, which I could not otherwise have avoided in deciding between relations of analogy and affinity, as they exist in the more general groups.

p. 321 leaving Acrite by means of Tunicata tendency to form brains, & great intelligence — leaving do the Zoanthus into Annulose" the vital energy is apparently divided among different ganglion & we finally arrive at the very great instinct of certain Annulosa."— instinct the perfection of this class.—
consider the difference.—

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p. 330 argues the truth of two branches in kingdom of animal from Lamarck confussion, which Macleay think goes of two grand divisions. How then does Lamarck bring in his fossil animals???

Copy

Now this notion could only have gained a place in the mind of Lamarck, from a conviction by experiment of its being an incontrovertible truth; for be it observed, that no more complete proof of the insufficiency of his theory of formation can be adduced than the existence of two series. Lamarck had unfortunately, from a ready perception of affinities, been induced to confound natural order, by which is meant the actual regularity of disposition which exists in Nature, with that order of formation by which is meant the process of it in time; and this error is more difficult to avoid, than a person who is not deeply versed in the investigation of affinities will be apt to imagine.  

 

N B It will be well to study Owen's paper on the Acriteas the foundation of the animal kingdom.—

p. 357 Vestiges of wings are to be discovered even in the flea.— Each of the 10 orders of insects affords instances of asterous insects species even after the last metamorphosis.

p. 363 copy & p. 364

Relations of analogy consist in a correspondence between certain insulated parts of the organization of two animals which differ in their general structure. These relations, however, seem to have been confounded by Lamarck, and indeed all zoologists, with those upon which orders, sections, families, and other subdivisions immediately depend. […] These various considerations have led me to imagine, how truly I have not yet been able to determine, that the test of a relation of affinity is its forming part of a transition continued from one structure to another by nearly equal intervals, and that the test of a relation of analogy is barely an evident similarity in some one or two remarkable points of formation, which at first sight give a character to the animal and distinguish it from its affinities.

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p. 364 & 365

Cimicidae & some of the Orthoptera so many points of similarity that Linneaus unites them into one order, & Latreille followed the same plan owing probably to their metamorphosis being similar.— "At first there is certainly sufficient to warrant the supposition of an affinity existing between them," but more careful examination assures us there is little similarity either in their organs of manduction or in their internal structure."— (& to me C.D manifestly more than ordinary case of analogy/ between a cimex & a gryllus in one of analogy & not of affinity."— Now all this is grounded on the assumption that one animal or grub can only have relation to the others, & not with more than two.— it is quite gratuitious.—

p. 366. "Indeed, in the cases of Aglossa and Phryganea, the larvae of both these genera live in the water by the aid of similar organs of respiration, and conceal themselves from their enemies in tubes, which they form by the agglutination of various foreign substances. Nor do they accord with each other less in structure when arrived at their perfect state. In short, the particulars of analogy become here sufficiently numerous to compose an affinity; and at length the connexion between the Lepidoptera and Trichoptera is to such a degree manifest, that we find it impossible to do otherwise than make this the point of junction between the Mandibulata and Haustellata."

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p. 368 & 369

Our thoughts will next be directed to the inequality which is so apparent in the contents of the orders. The order of Diptera, for instance, comprises an almost innumerable quantity of species, whereas those of Apterous insects are well known to be remarkably few. Yet the order of Aptera has been admitted as natural by every eminent entomological writer since the days of Degeer. Why then this disparity of contents in two adjoining groups? Such is truly a question well worthy of investigation, but more particularly when we know that this disparity is the strongest argument in favour of a saltus that can be adduced. I have, however, designated the great intervals which sometimes separate two such adjoining groups as chasms or hiatus, rather than as saltus; in the first place, because they never appear to proceed from the series being interrupted by any thing known; and then, because I cannot help thinking, from analogy, that if they never should be filled by living animals, they may have, at some time or other, been occupied by species now extinct. These chasms are indeed in some cases very wide; but, on the other hand, we often see the orders passing gradually into one another, as the Hemiptera and Homoptera, the Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Neuroptera and Trichoptera; so that, where any void occurs, it is difficult not to imagine that it must result rather from the imperfection of our knowledge of created species than from any other cause whatever."

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p 389 "The only method by which at present I can explain this remarkable circumstance (namely some difficulties in the classification of spiders & crabs with reference to Cyamus  & Pycnogonium) is by the affinity which opposite points of a circle always bear to each other"

p. 399 "Relations of analogy, however, are not rigorously confined to contiguous circles, but may sometimes be carried on to the corresponding points of others widely distant."

p. 405. quotes G. St. Hilaire to show that every animal has some part of structure in greatest perfection.

NB 1 in old idea of creation this language of talking of perfection is nonesense, but it is sense when my theory comes into play.— from abortive to absolutely perfect organs there must be series.—

N.B. 2. The assumption that only one par of every species was created as if founded in Genesis or observation — if latter it bears on my theory

p 408. quotes Latreille memoir read before Institut "On the formation of wings of insects" gives his theory of 10 organs in all annulose animals

p 420 confesses it is impossible to mistake a Coleopterous insect with one of the other orders hence an eminently natural order    total absence of ocella manner in which wings folded

p 423. larvae of Coleoptera orders have strong relations of analogy with the Ametabola, iulis Scolopendrae &

p. 446 "Then, by the reflection that no animal out of the circle of Acrita can ever arrive at its perfect state except by means of Metamorphosis, and that when perfect it can never again be subject to this change of form."

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(this is a case to think of)

p 447 copy

Those changes in the instincts of the same insect which every person must have observed to result from metamorphosis being considered, it is to be expected that the nervous system of the larva and imago will prove different on dissection ; but the difficulty is to understand how any such complete alteration in the nervous system can be effected while the identity of the animalis preserved.

p. 454 In other words, I imagine it to be proved by the whole of the preceding chapters, that when a system depends on a division of organs or properties, it is artificial; when it depends on their method of variation, it is natural.

p. 458. reurges no division in nature therefore necessity to study variations in organs

p. 476 "Others, composing what may be styled the school of Bichat, vest their reason in the substance of their brain, by the organization of which they hold perception as a latent property of matter to be called into activity. The nerves with them produce the mental faculties, in the same manner that the various secretions of an animal are generated by the secretory organs. Here is clearly an assumption of what can never be proved; for while they assert that the brain and nerves constitute the mind, all we really know of the subject is, that during life the exercise of the sentient principle is connected with medullary matter. But why this medullary matter should be an operative cause rather than an operative instrument, no one can tell, particularly when it is more consonant with what we positively know of matter, that it should be an instrument."

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(a)

p. 487 & 488

"The principle of liberty, on the contrary, predominates in the Vertebrata; and although no animals in this last circle, except man, are sufficiently free to be morally responsible, we see the whole contents of the group tending towards this point of perfection. We have seen that nature appears to abhor absolute division in the arrangement of organized matter, and something of the same kind is observable here in characterizing spirit. Vestiges of instinct may be traced in man; and a will faintly dawns in those insects which are most enslaved to their peculiar economy.

But there are animals, as we have seen, which possess only that simple degree of material life, which allows merely of their being propagated, like plants, by scission; and for the sake of uniformity we were obliged to assume that such animals are capable in some degree of sensibility.

The very reverse of unity is however visible in their irritable principles. Here, therefore, if the presence of an immaterial conscious being be adinitted, it must be in infinite number; an idea so absurd, that we are forced to believe that the Acrita, or those animals which possess not the life of organification, have no sentient principle acting on their nervous matter. Their irritability no more proves it, than the convulsion by galvanism of the muscles of a dead frog is sufficient testimony of its suffering pain.

138v

(a) In dividing a Planaria.— can animal having eyes analogy certainly leads one to think some faculties more like sentient than the life of the viscera within one's body, or the [essalating] of the cut-out heart.— In the Planariae there is present what Macleay calls the "life of organifaction" a life which leads to the formation of organs within body,— namely the bud-like cup & eyes.— in p. 184 there is much false reasoning owing to the consideration of no new life being created, in splitting up animals, seems to consider only the lowest animals capable of this.— In case of Planaria a good example would be galvanic battery, the [irritability] of each part, like a pair of plates, but as long as animal perfect, all act together & produce effects, which separately they could not produce. Yet each plate in a galvanic batteris long so have an independent existence & in galvanic battery it is not mere multiplication of effects of single pairs, but the charge is different.—

Why we should say, when no life of organifcation no sentient principle, I do not know without it is that he believes the life of organification implies unity of being, if so – applicable to Planariae.