OBSERVATIONS 



ON THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF 



ENTOMOLOGY, 



1 HE simplicity of the arrangement adopted by Linne, the celebrity 

 of his name, and the princely patronage under which he wrote, con- 

 spired with other favourable circumstances to render this science more 

 universally cultivated, admired, and respected about his time, than it 

 had probably been at any former period. The credit due to this natu- 

 ralist for his labours in entomology is great. This must be allowed. 

 But let us also remember, that he is not alone entitled to our commen- 

 dation for the arrangement proposed in his work. We n)ust in candour 

 acknowledge the merits of many among his predecessors, who wrote 

 under circumstances of less encouragement, and have nevertheless ex- 

 celled in this science; men to whom the writings of Linne stand in a 

 very high degree indebted, and without the aid of which it is impossible 

 to imagine the system, which now commands our admiration, could 

 have been produced, at least in its present state of purity. 



In the works of Aristotle and Pliny, in those of Agricola, Aldro- 

 vandus, Franzius, Mouffet, Swammcrdam, Ray, Willughby, Lister, 

 \'allisnieri, and various others, we distinctly perceive, with some oc- 

 casional variation, the outline of the superstructure raised in the 

 " Systema Naturae." 



These valuable sources of information furnished him with abundant 

 materials, which he selected with prolbund judgement, and inter- 

 wove with ability, industry, and success. Linne was in this respect 

 commendaVjle : he did not suffer his mind to swerve on this oc- 

 casion, from any ambitious or innovating motives; and so far as he 

 deemed it consistent with his plan, he appears to have adhered to 

 the examples ol' his predecessors. The characters of his Ordines are 

 to be found in several publications earlier than his own, and so like- 

 wise are most of his Genera, and the far greater number of his 

 Impedes. But these he remoulded throughout with so much skill, that 

 this " Systema'' constitutes the central point in which the scattered 

 rays of natural science are concentrated with more precision than 

 they really appear in the original authors to whose industry he stands 

 indebted. It was in the concise and very expressive style which Linne 



